Helix Nebula, NGC 7293 for Desktop 8K

This new image of a portion of the Helix Nebula from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope highlights comet-like knots shaped by fierce stellar winds and layers of gas and dust shed off by a dying star interacting with its surrounding environment. Webb’s image also shows the stark transition between the hottest gas to the coolest gas as the shell expands out from the central white dwarf.

Image Credit:NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)