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Ring Nebula

Also known as Messier 57

planetary nebula in the constellation Lyra

AI overview

The Ring Nebula is a planetary nebula—a shell of glowing gas ejected by a dying star—located in the constellation Lyra and visible through telescopes. It serves as a striking example of how stars end their lives and is one of the most recognizable deep-sky objects for amateur astronomers.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Wikidata facts

Distance from Earth: 880
Radius: 0.9
Image: Ring Nebula.jpg

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Commons category: Ring Nebula
catalog code: WEB 16043
parallax: 11.9
Commons gallery: Messier 57
time of discovery or invention: 1779-01-31
apparent magnitude: 16.40
absolute magnitude: -0.3
right ascension: 283.39623732134754
declination: 33.02913420728361
radial velocity: -19.1
spectral class: DA(O?)
right ascension component of proper motion: -6.0
declination component of proper motion: 6.7

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Article

The Ring Nebula is a planetary nebula in the northern constellation of Lyra, about mid-way between the prominent stars Beta and Gamma Lyrae. It is also catalogued as Messier 57, M57 and NGC 6720. The nebula was discovered by Charles Messier in 1779. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 8.8, which is too faint to be visible with the naked eye, but it can be readily observed with a small telescope.

HaRGB image of the Ring Nebula (M57) showing the faint outer shells. The spiral galaxy IC 1296 can also be seen in the top left. Data from the Liverpool Telescope on La Palma, Islas Canarias (Canary Islands), Spain. A planetary nebula is formed when a star, during the last stages of its evolution before becoming a white dwarf, expels a vast luminous envelope of ionized gas into the surrounding interstellar space. The progenitor star for the ring nebula is now a carbon-oxygen white dwarf with an apparent visual magnitude of +15.75. Based on parallax measurements, this star is located at a distance of approximately 2,570 light-years (790 pc) from the Sun. After expanding for 1,610 years, the nebula currently has a diameter of 4.6 ly.