Scientists have nicknamed the image - captured by a giant telescope on the Chilean mountains - the eye of God. In fact, it shows the death throes of a star similar to our sun, before it retires as a 'white dwarf' believed to be the final evolutionary state of a medium-sized star.The blue pupil, the white of the eye and pink lid are created by layers of gas and dust thrown off and illuminated by the star as it comes to the end of its life over the course of thousands of years.
First recorded by German astronomer Karl Ludwig Harding in 1824, the eye, known as the Helix nebula, lies in the constellation of Aquarius. It can be dimly seen in small backyard telescopes by amateur astronomers.
This latest spectacular and detailed picture was taken by the Wide Field Imager at the European Southern Observatory in La Silla. It shows a rich background of distant galaxies, usually not seen in other images of this object.
Covering an area of sky around a quarter the size of the full moon, the helix is so huge that it would take a beam of light two-and-a-half years to cross it. It appears to be round because we are looking at one end of the nebula. It is actually a trillion-mile-long tunnel of glowing gases. Our own sun is expected to suffer a similar fate - but not for five billion years. (Source: Daily Mail)
