Beautiful Real Images of the Helix Nebula! This is the Helix Nebula! It’s also known as the “Eye Nebula”, because obviously it looks like an eye. But how did the Helix Nebula form? Well, When a star like the Sun runs out of fuel, it expands and its outer layers puff off, and then the core of the star shrinks. This phase is known as a “planetary nebula,” and astronomers expect our Sun will experience this in about 5 billion years.
Credits: NASA, ESA/Hubble. (Seventh Image is taken in Infrared.)
