The Helix in infrared!

[pokerfan]

Eat your heart out, Hubble!

About 700 light years away sits the expanding death cry of a star: the Helix Nebula, a four-light-year wide gas cloud blasted out when a star that was once like the Sun gave up its life.



This image is in the near-infrared, taken using the European Southern Observatory’s Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA), a 4.1 meter telescope in Chile. Equipped with a whopping 67 megapixel camera it can take pictures of large areas of the sky. The Helix nebula fits that bill: it’s close enough to us that it’s nearly the size of the full Moon in the sky.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/01/19/the-helix-screams-in-infrared/

More from Science Now:

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/01/scienceshot-a-revealing-look-at.html

[n2doc]

1. Sauron n/t

[Orsino]

2. It seems to follow me all around the room. n/t

[HopeHoops]

8. That was my first thought.

[BadgerKid]

3. A little perspective

4 LY is like the distance from Sol to our nearest stars in Alpha Centauri.

[progressoid]

4. Screensaver!

[qb]

5. I feel like I'm being watched!

[tclambert]

6. Sauron's eye found 700 light-year away.

That's the headline you should have led with.

[TheMadMonk]

7. You'd be surprised how often Sauron's Eye puts in an appearance...

...on the interwebs.

[laconicsax]

9. Meh...the Helix wishes it were the Ring Nebula

It's super jealous.