May 7th , 2024
CHIRANJIT MITRA
A dying star's spectacular farewell! It's a cloud of glowing gas, expelled as a star reaches the end of its life.
Traditional telescopes saw a ring shape. But new images reveal hidden complexities beyond a simple circle.
The James Webb Space Telescope peers through dust with infrared vision, unveiling previously unseen details.
The nebula is sculpted by TWO stars orbiting each other. The dimmer one ejected the glowing gas layers.
The stars' interactions create ripples, knots, and weird "spokes" within the gas cloud - not fully understood yet.
The bright star is in an earlier life stage, while the nebula-maker is cloaked in dust, burning out at its core.
Studying the Southern Ring Nebula teaches us how stars die, potentially shaping our Sun's eventual fate.
The Southern Ring Nebula isn't just visually stunning—with every new observation, it unlocks secrets of the universe.