Ring Nebula (Messier 57)

Messier 57 (M57) also known as the Ring Nebula, sits 2,300 light years away from Earth, in the constellation of Lyra and is roughly 1 light year in size. Its understood that the nebula would of once been a giant sun like star, before its outer shells where blown apart, as the star began its transformation into a white dwarf. The star at the center of the nebula is made up mostly of Carbon and Oxygen. It is roughly 200 times brighter than our own sun and has a surface temperature of around 125,500 ± 5,200 kelvin. The blue hue that surrounds the star is Oxygen gas that has been ionized by the central star, whilst the red hue is a mixture of both Hydrogen and Nitrogen. The red wavy structures surrounding the nebula would have been the first layers of material ejected from the star, as it began to evolve into a white dwarf.
The nebula was first discovered by Antoine Darquier de Pellepoix, who was a french astronomer, in January 1779. The nebula was first photographed by the Hungarian astronomer Eugene von Gothard in 1886.

This image above is composed of visible light data took from the Hubble Space Telescope and infrared data collected from the ground based Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona.