WEAVE;Stars, stellar systems and interstellar medium;Messier;Nebulae
DATE
2026-01-16
ABSTRACT
A composite RGB image of the Ring Nebula (also known as Messier 57 and NGC 6720) constructed from four WEAVE/LIFU emission-line images (see figure below). The bright outer ring is made up of light emitted by three different ions of oxygen, while the bar across the middle is due to light emitted by a plasma of four-times-ionised iron atoms. North is up and East is to the left in the image. The angular dimensions of the image are 120 x 110 arcseconds on the sky (E-W x N-S), corresponding to physical dimensions of 95,000 x 87,000 Astronomical Units (AU) for the 787 parsec distance to the Ring Nebula. An Astronomical Unit is the mean distance from the Sun to the Earth.
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