Depth 35 · Planetary nebula

Ring Nebula

The Ring Nebula is a shell of glowing gas thrown off by a dying Sun-like star, whose exposed core is on its way to becoming a white dwarf. It is one of the best-studied planetary nebulae and a clear example of how stars like the Sun end their lives.

Fact sheet

Type: Planetary nebula
Distance: About 2,600 light-years from Earth, from Gaia measurements (older NASA pages give about 2,000)
Size: About 3 light-years across including its faint outer halo; the bright main ring is much smaller
Constellation: Lyra
Position in the sky: Right ascension 18h 53m, declination +33° 02′
Seeing it from Earth: Too faint for the naked eye (about magnitude 8.8), it sits between the stars Sheliak and Sulafat in Lyra, and a moderately sized telescope is needed to make out the ring shape.
On the voyage: Depth 35, in the Milky Way section of the route, between the Orion Nebula and the Crab Nebula

Things to know

French astronomer Antoine Darquier de Pellepoix found the nebula in 1779 while following a comet, and Charles Messier spotted it the same month. ESA/Hubble
Hubble images showed that the 'ring' is really a distorted doughnut of gas seen almost straight down one pole, with a rugby-ball-shaped core of thinner gas filling the hole. ESA/Hubble
The colours in Hubble's view trace different elements: helium near the centre, hydrogen and oxygen in the inner ring, and nitrogen and sulfur farther out. NASA
In 2023 the James Webb Space Telescope picked out about 20,000 small, dense clumps rich in molecular hydrogen within the nebula. ESA/Webb
Webb also revealed around ten faint concentric arcs beyond the main ring, which may have been shaped by a small companion star orbiting the central star at roughly the Earth-Pluto distance. ESA/Webb

Sources

Reach depth 35 on a voyage to fly past the Ring Nebula yourself. Every right answer warps your ship one stop deeper.

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