Hubble Space Telescope images the Ring Nebula M57
Ring Nebula M57, photographed with the HST WFPC2
Looking Down a Barrel of Gas At a Doomed Star
The NASA Hubble Space Telescope has captured the sharpest view yet of
the most famous of all planetary nebulae: the Ring Nebula (M57). In this
October 1998 image, the telescope has looked down a barrel 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;
the dying central star floating in a blue haze of hot gas.
The colors are approximately true colors. The color image was assembled
from three black-and-white photos taken through different color filters
with the Hubble telescope’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. Blue isolates
emission from very hot helium, which is located primarily close to the
hot central star. Green represents ionized oxygen, which is located
farther from the star. Red shows ionized nitrogen, which is radiated
from the coolest gas, located farthest from the star. The gradations of
color illustrate how the gas glows because it is bathed in ultraviolet
radiation from the remnant central star, whose surface temperature is a
white-hot 216,000 degrees Fahrenheit (120,000 degrees Celsius).
Credit: Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA)
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Original STScI Press Release PR 99-01
- High-res version of this image
- 1152×900 screen sized image
- Older HST image of M57
- WIYN images of M57
- Three faces of M57 by George Jacoby, KPNO
- Lowell 1.1-m images of M57 (Bill Keel)
- More images of M57
- Amateur images of M57,
Last Modification: 24 Feb 1999, 16:30 MET