NASA published a picture of the “heavenly eye”

NASA published a photo of the planetary nebula NGC 3918, which has the form of an “eye”.

On the frame taken with the help of one of the Hubble telescope chambers, you can see a brilliant cloud of colorful gas in the constellation Centaurus, which is located about 4,900 light years from Earth.

As noted by scientists, the distinctive feature of NGC 3918 is the “eye” form with a bright central star and a more transparent outer shell. This phenomenon is due to the fact that powerful jets of gas are separated from the star at a speed of about 350,000 kilometers per hour.

By the standards of astronomical phenomena, planetary nebulae, such as NGC 3918, are very short-lived and have a lifespan of only a few tens of thousands of years.

The planetary nebula is an astronomical object, consisting of an ionized gas shell and a central star, a white dwarf. Nebulae are formed when the outer shells of the red giants and supergiants are dumped at the final stage of their evolution.