Water-Building Molecule in the Ring Nebula

The Ring Nebula at optical wavelengths as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope, with Herschel data acquired with SPIRE and PACS over a wavelength range of 51–672 micrometers for the region identified. The spectra have been cropped and the scales stretched in order to show the OH+ emission, a molecular ion important for the formation of water. ESA’s Herschel space observatory is the first to detect this molecule in planetary nebulas – the product of dying Sun-like stars.

For more information, see New Molecules Around Old Stars.

Image credit: Hubble image: NASA/ESA/C. Robert O’Dell (Vanderbilt University) Herschel data: ESA/Herschel/PACS & SPIRE/ HerPlaNS survey/I. Aleman et al.

Messier 57 - The Ring Nebula

New view of the Ring Nebula (also known as Messier 57 or NGC 6720) by the Hubble Space Telescope.

From Earth’s perspective, the nebula looks like a simple elliptical shape with a shaggy boundary. However, new observations combining existing ground-based data with new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope data show that the nebula is shaped like a distorted doughnut. This doughnut has a rugby-ball-shaped region of lower-density material slotted into in its central ‘gap’, stretching towards and away from us.

Photo credit: NASA, ESA, and C. Robert O'Dell (Vanderbilt University)