The James Webb Space Telescope has provided images with unprecedented resolution of one of the most fascinating space objects in our sky, the Ring Nebula. formed from the remains of a decaying star that sheds its outer layers when it runs out of fuel.
The Ring Nebula (also known as M57 and NGC 6720) gets its name from its distorted donut shape, is relatively close to Earth, about 2,500 light years, and It is possible to observe it on summer nights in the Northern Hemisphere with medium-sized telescopes..
The new images provided by the James Webb telescope (NASA/ESA/CSA) provide previously unseen spatial resolution and spectral sensitivitywhich have allowed us to observe the intricate details of the filamentous structure of the inner ring, or to better understand the outer regions of the ring, in which about ten concentric arcs can be seen.
In the photographs, one of the poles of this structure is visible almost directly, like a kind of barrel of brightly colored material that extends far from Earth.
Although the center of the donut may appear empty, it is actually is filled with lower density material that spreads out and recedes at the same timecreating a shape similar to that of a balloon embedded in the central hole of the donut, explains the ESA in a statement.