July 15, 2018
The elements that make you — the calcium in your bones, the oxygen in your lungs — were scattered across space by dying stars long before...
Rings Around the Ring Nebula
Birthday · July 15, 2018
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APOD published July 15, 2018. Credit: Robert Gendler. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
There is much more to the familiar Ring Nebula (M57), however, than can be seen through a small telescope. The easily visible central ring is about one light-year across, but this remarkably deep exposure - a collaborative effort combining data from three different large telescopes - explores the looping filaments of glowing gas extending much farther from the nebula's central star. This remarkable composite image includes narrowband hydrogen image, visible light emission, and infrared light emission. 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 a dying, sun-like star. The Ring Nebula is about 2,000 light-years away toward the musical constellation Lyra. Open Science: Browse 1,700+ codes in the Astrophysics Source Code Library
Image credit: Robert Gendler