The Helix Nebula from
Blanco and Hubble
From NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the
Day
How did a star create
the Helix nebula?
The shapes of planetary
nebula like the Helix are
important because they likely hold clues to how stars like the Sun end
their lives.
Observations by the
orbiting Hubble Space
Telescope and the 4-meter Blanco
Telescope in Chile,
however, have shown the Helix is not really
a simple helix.
Rather, it incorporates
two nearly
perpendicular disks as well as arcs, shocks, and even features
not well understood.
Even so, many strikingly
geometric symmetries remain. How a single Sun-like star created such beautiful
yetgeometric complexity is
a topic of research.
The Helix Nebula is the
nearest planetary
nebula to Earth, lies only about 700 light years away
toward the constellation of Aquarius,
and spans about 3 light-years.
