  Eye of God Photo
The Helix Nebula
NGC 7293Also known as the Eye of God
Will our
Sun
look like this one day? The Helix Nebula is the closest example of a planetary nebula created at the end of the life of a Sun-like star. The outer gasses of the star
expelled into space appear from our vantage point as if we are looking down a helix.
The remnant central stellar core, destined to become a white dwarf star, glows in light so
energetic it causes the previously expelled gas to fluoresce.
The Helix Nebula, given a technical designation of
NGC 7293, lies about 650 light-years away towards the constellation of
Aquarius and spans about 2.5 light-years. The above picture is a
composite
of newly released images from the ACS instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope
and wide-angle images from the Mosaic Camera on the
0.9-m Telescope at
Kitt Peak National Observatory. A close-up
of the inner edge of the Helix Nebula shows complex gas knots of
unknown origin.
Credit: HST, Text: APOD
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