The Hourglass Nebula - space

\r\nThis is an image of MyCn18, a young planetary nebula located about 8,000 light-years away, taken with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) aboard the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).\r\n\r\nThis Hubble image reveals the true shape of MyCn18 to be an hourglass with an intricate pattern of 'etchings' in its walls. This picture has been composed from three separate images taken in the light of ionized nitrogen (represented by red), hydrogen (green), and doubly-ionized oxygen (blue).\r\n\r\nThe results are of great interest because they shed new light on the poorly understood ejection of stellar matter which accompanies the slow death of Sun-like stars. In previous ground-based images, MyCn18 appears to be a pair of large outer rings with a smaller central one, but the fine details cannot be seen.\r\n\r\n\r\nCredit:\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nRaghvendra Sahai and John Trauger (JPL), the WFPC2 science team, andNASA/ESA\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\r\nAbout the Image\r\n\r\nNASA press release\r\nNASA caption\r\n\r\nId: opo9607a \r\nType: Observation \r\nRelease date: 16 January 1996, 06:00 \r\nSize: 540 x 537 px \r\n\r\n\r\nAbout the Object\r\n\r\n\r\nName: Hourglass Nebula, MyCn 18 \r\nType: • Milky Way : Nebula : Type : Planetary\r\n• X - Nebulae Images/Videos \r\nDistance: 8000 light years\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\nColours & filters\r\n\r\n\r\nBand Telescope \r\nOptical\r\nOiii Hubble Space Telescope\r\nWFPC2 \r\nOptical\r\nH-alpha Hubble Space Telescope\r\nWFPC2 \r\nOptical\r\nNii Hubble Space Telescope\r\nWFPC2 \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nImage Formats\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nFullsize Original\r\n\r\n\r\n301.9 KB \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nLarge JPEG\r\n\r\n\r\n76.1 KB \r\n\r\n