Photo Agency - Astronomy - Space - Nature

> The Ring nebula M57 in Lyra

The Ring nebula M57 in Lyra

author: Nasa/ESA/R.Gendler/Novapix

reference: a-nep67-20008

Image Size 300 DPI: 22 * 18 cm

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured the sharpest view yet of M57, the Ring Nebula in Lyra, which is the most famous of all planetary nebulae. In this image, the telescope has looked down a tunnel of gas cast off by a dying star thousands of years ago. This photo reveals elongated dark clumps of material embedded in the gas at the edge of the nebula, and the dying central star floating in a blue haze of hot gas. The nebula is about a light-year in diameter, and is located some 2,000 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Lyra.

Keywords for this photo:

2010 - ASTRONOMY - DWARF - DYING STAR - EVOLUTION - HST - HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE - LYRA - M57 - NEBULA - NGC 6720 - PLANETARY NEBULA - STAR - WHITE DWARF -