London - Astronomers have obtained the best pictures yet of one of the most spectacular objects in the universe, the Ring Nebula. The glowing smoke-ring of blue, green and red gas is about a light year wide and situated 2,000 light years from Earth in the constellation of Lyra. New images from the Hubble Space Telescope show that the "ring" is really a cylinder of gas seen almost end-on.
The pictures were the first new images chosen for the Hubble Heritage Programme, which is releasing monthly samples from the telescope's archives.