Good morning, everyone. This morning we’ll be talking about another beautiful planetary nebula: NGC 7009, also known as the Saturn Nebula, located in the constellation Aquarius and about 3,000 light-years from Earth.

This planetary nebula was discovered by the great William Herschel on September 7, 1782, but it owes its nickname to Lord Rosse, who observed it in the 1840s with significantly better instruments, noticing its resemblance to Saturn, the ringed planet. A resemblance, in truth, that is not particularly strong when viewed with modern instruments, and is primarily seen in its elongated shape with a brighter central region.

This fantastic image was created by combining images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope in visible light and Chandra, specialized in X-ray imaging.

Once again, this image gives us a glimpse of our star’s future while looking back to the past, as the light we are observing started its journey 3,000 years ago to reach us. I don’t know about you, but I find this all incredibly fascinating.

https://image.nostr.build/ea17c1aa294628c8f6c96a478b8e6ef776e8c3fabdcc71480191896de125b4e9.jpg