The famous nebula has never been shot in such detail

May 24, 2013 19:31 GMT  ·  By

The Ring Nebula is one of the best known nebulas, particularly because of its spectacular appearance. There are plenty of images of the nebula, but the latest from Hubble revealed some never-before seen details.

"The nebula is not like a bagel, but rather, it's like a jelly doughnut, because it's filled with material in the middle," C. Robert O'Dell of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., who led the team that captured the new data, said.

"The new Hubble observations show the nebula in much clearer detail, and we see things are not as simple as we previously thought," he added.

The Ring Nebula is relatively close-by, at 2,000 light years away. It's a planetary nebula, the remains of an exploding star.

All that's left of the star is a white dwarf in the middle of the nebula. This happened 4,000 years ago, the gas has been expanding since then, pushed by the ultraviolet radiation of the remnant star.