The Dumbbell Nebula

Billions of years from now, our sun will transform from a red giant into something that will look like this. Some stars will explode in a highly energetic supernova and others kind of fizzle out by ejecting their atmospheres out into space, this is what you see here. At the center of this shell of ionized gas lies the hot core of the star, called a white dwarf. This is known as a planetary nebula because these objects resemble the disk of a planet when viewed through a telescope. The Dumbbell Nebula is currently located directly overhead from my location in the northern hemisphere in the Vulpecula constellation approximately 1300 light years away.