Astronomy Picture of the Day -- NGC 3132: The Eight Burst Nebula

NASA ^ | June 07, 2015 | (see photo credit)

[SunkenCiv]

Explanation: It's the dim star, not the bright one, near the center of NGC 3132 that created this odd but beautiful planetary nebula. Nicknamed the Eight-Burst Nebula and the Southern Ring Nebula, the glowing gas originated in the outer layers of a star like our Sun. In this representative color picture, the hot blue pool of light seen surrounding this binary system is energized by the hot surface of the faint star. Although photographed to explore unusual symmetries, it's the asymmetries that help make this planetary nebula so intriguing. Neither the unusual shape of the surrounding cooler shell nor the structure and placements of the cool filamentary dust lanes running across NGC 3132 are well understood.

[SunkenCiv]

[Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)]

[SunkenCiv]

Space, the Final Frontier...

The Big One

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[Talisker]

People should remember we’re looking at a 3-D artifact with these planetary nebulas. They’re not rings, they’re spheres. But the gas is so thin that we see straight through it, and only see the build-up of it along the sides perpendicular to us.

[left that other site]

Beautiful! :-)