One of the most popular and frequently photographed objects in space is the Ring Nebula.. It is the remnant of a dead Sun-like star located about 2,000 light years away.. The amazing appearance of this nebula has long puzzled astronomers.. Until now, it was not clear whether it really has a round shape or whether it is just an illusion that occurs when observed from Earth. Now astronomers have solved this problem and found out that not only a dead star is hidden inside the nebula, but also another object, writes Space.

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The Ring Nebula is a planetary nebula created by the death of a Sun-like star approximately 4,000 years ago.. When a not-so-massive star ends its life, it turns into a large red giant and sheds its outer layers in a way that creates a planetary nebula.. The name of these objects has nothing to do with planets, it’s just that initially the discoverers of these nebulae saw that they had a planet-like shape.

According to scientists, it was believed that planetary nebulae are round in shape, and inside them there is a dead white dwarf star.. These stars arise after a dead Sun-like star has shed its entire outer layer and shrunk to a very small size, about the diameter of the Earth..

Now, scientists have collected high-resolution images and were able to trace the movement of carbon monoxide molecules along the edge of the Ring Nebula, which has improved our understanding of its structure and shape.. In particular, astronomers have found that the Ring Nebula actually has an elongated oval shape.

New data on the structure of a planetary nebula has allowed astronomers to confirm that a white dwarf star is indeed at its center.. In past images, this star was not visible at the center of the nebula, but scientists believe that may be due to our viewing angle.

In Webb telescope images, scientists discovered several concentric arcs of gas just outside the nebula's outer edge that appeared to form every 280 years. This regularity is due to the fact that the white dwarf actually has a hidden companion star inside the nebula, scientists believe. This star, according to calculations, should be at the same distance from the white dwarf as Pluto is from the Sun, that is, approximately 5.9 billion km.

As Focus already wrote, the Sun does something strange before solar flares that are dangerous to the Earth occur.. Scientists have found that coronal loops in the Sun's outer atmosphere may act as an early warning system for solar flares..

Focus also wrote that scientists have found hints that string theory, which states that the Universe is not made of particles, but of vibrating strings of energy, may be true.