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 nebula is about a light-year in diameter and is located some 2,000 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Lyra.
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).
Credits
The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA)| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Messier 57, M57, Ring Nebula, NGC 6720 |
| Object Description | Planetary Nebula |
| R.A. Position | 18h 53m 35.16s |
| Dec. Position | 33° 1' 43.2" |
| Constellation | Lyra |
| Distance | 0.7 kpc or 2300 light-years |
| Dimensions | The image is 2 arcminutes (roughly 1.3 light-years) on the veritcal side. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | Principal Astronomers: H. Bond, C. Christian, J. English, L. Frattare, F. Hamilton, A. Kinney, Z. Levay, K. Noll (The Hubble Heritage Team, STScI) |
| Instrument | HST>WFPC2 |
| Exposure Dates | October 16, 1998, Exposure Time: 1 hour |
| Filters | F469N (He II), F501N ([O III]), and F658N ([N II]) |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | Blue: F469N (He II) Green: F501N ([O III]) Red: F658N ([N II]) |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
