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- NGC 7027 on Wikipedia
NGC 7027
Details
NGC 7027 is a young planetary nebula in Cygnus with a compact bright inner region wrapped in fainter outer shells of gas. Recent Hubble observations show a remnant still changing shape, where newer, more directed outflows are running into older material shed by the dying central star.
NGC 7027 is a young planetary nebula, which means it is not just the leftover shell of a dying star but a remnant still close to the violence that made it. Hubble shows a compact bright core wrapped in fainter outer layers, so the object reads less like a smooth bubble and more like a small structure still being actively sculpted.
That matters because the shaping did not happen in one quiet event. NASA's description points to older material shed over thousands of years and a later phase of more violent, highly directed ejections. When those newer outflows run into the older shell, the nebula becomes a visible record of collisions between different episodes of stellar mass loss.
NGC 7027 is therefore useful well beyond its photogenic shape. It shows that the planetary-nebula stage can remain dynamic and physically legible, with the geometry of the gas preserving the fact that a dying star's final outflows do not have to be steady, simple, or symmetrical.
702billion km
Key facts
- Category
- Nebulae
- Object class
- Planetary nebula
- Host
- Milky Way
- Scale fact
- 1,890 billion km0.2 lymaximum extent
- Composition
- Gas, dust, and stellar ejecta
Scale context
Where NGC 7027 sits on the full axis
By size on the journey, NGC 7027 sits between TON 618 and Cat's Eye Nebula. The band below compares NGC 7027 with nearby Planetary nebula objects so the size jump stays easy to read.
Shared physical scale
3.64ly
Together, these objects make the size change around NGC 7027 easy to compare at a glance.
Between the smallest and the largest, perspective is everything.
About
Scale of Space is a scroll-based journey through the universe, placing objects on a single logarithmic scale so you can compare size across an unbroken range.
Guides turn parts of that scale into curated essays, while focused views let you explore the same range through specific groups of objects.