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Ring Nebula
Details
The Ring Nebula is a planetary nebula in Lyra, a glowing shell left behind when a dying Sun-like star shed its outer layers. Hubble reveals a distorted doughnut of ionized gas with lower-density material threaded through the center.
The Ring Nebula is the glowing shell left after a Sun-like star shed its outer layers, which is why it reads at first glance like a bright ring suspended in space. That familiarity is useful, but misleading, because what we see is the face-on projection of a much more complicated shell around a dying star.
In Hubble's view, the nebula is better described as a distorted doughnut. The central gap is not empty, and the inner rim is mottled with knots and uneven structure that reveal how the gas is layered in three dimensions.
That is why the Ring Nebula remains such a useful reference point. It turns an iconic astronomical image into a lesson about stellar death: a Sun-like star can leave behind a remnant that is ordered, but not simple.
9,137billion km0.97ly
Visual creditNASA, ESA, and C. Robert O’Dell (Vanderbilt University) / Public domainSource: Wikimedia Commons
Key facts
- Category
- Nebulae
- Object class
- Planetary nebula
- Host
- Milky Way
- Scale fact
- 2.6 lydiameter
- Composition
- Ionized gas and stellar ejecta
Scale context
Where Ring Nebula sits on the full axis
By size on the journey, Ring Nebula sits between Homunculus Nebula and Oort Cloud. The band below compares Ring Nebula 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 Ring Nebula 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.