Credit: Robert Rubin (NASA/ESA Ames Research Center), Reginald Dufour and Matt Browning (Rice University), Patrick Harrington (University of Maryland), and NASA/ESA

This Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2image of NGC 6818 shows two distinct layers of gas (with dust): a spherical outer region and a brighter, vase-shaped interior 'bubble.' Astronomers believe that a fast wind - material propelled by radiation from the hot central star - is creating the inner elongated shape. The central star of the planetary nebula appears as a tiny blue dot. The material in the wind is traveling so fast that it smashes through older, slower-moving stellar debris, causing a 'blowout' at both ends of the bubble (lower right and upper left).

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9811h/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, None, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License