M57: The Ring Nebula
Credit: H. Bond et al., Hubble
Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), NASA
Explanation: It looks like a ring on the sky. Hundreds of years ago
astronomers noticed a nebula with a most unusual
shape. Now known as
M57 or NGC 6720, the
gas cloud became popularly known as the
Ring Nebula. It is now known
to be a
planetary nebula, a gas cloud
emitted at the end of a Sun-like star's existence. As one of the brightest
planetary nebula on the
sky, the Ring Nebula can be seen with a small telescope in the constellation of
Lyra.
The
Ring Nebula lies about 4,000
light years
away, and is roughly 500 times the diameter of
our Solar System. In
this
picture by the
Hubble Space Telescope in 1998,
dust filaments and
globules are visible far from the central star. This helps indicate that the
Ring Nebula is not spherical, but
cylindrical.
Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry
Bonnell (UMCP)
NASA Official:
Phillip Newman Specific rights
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