Posted on 04/02/2023 11:45:15 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Explanation: It was noticed hundreds of years ago by stargazers who could not understand its unusual shape. It looked like a ring on the sky. Except for the rings of Saturn, the Ring Nebula (M57) may be the most famous celestial circle. We now know what it is, and that its iconic shape is due to our lucky perspective. The recent mapping of the expanding nebula's 3-D structure, based in part on this clear Hubble image,indicates that the nebula is a relatively dense, donut-like ring wrapped around the middle of an (American) football-shaped cloud of glowing gas. Our view from planet Earth looks down the long axis of the football, face-on to the ring. Of course, in this well-studied example of a planetary nebula, the glowing material does not come from planets. Instead, the gaseous shroud represents outer layers expelled from the dying, once sun-like star, now a tiny pinprick of light seen at the nebula's center. Intense ultraviolet light from the hot central star ionizes atoms in the gas. The Ring Nebula is about one light-year across and 2,500 light-years away.
For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.
We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid.
We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creed refreshes us; we laugh.
But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles.
— Hilaire Beloc
“I am the eye in the sky, looking at you.”
Thru my 115mm scope it looks like a celestial smoke ring.
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