The Hourglass Nebula is a planetary nebula located about 8,000 light years away, meaning that its light takes 8,000 years to reach Earth. A dying star in the center of the nebula is ejecting gaseous material into space. The first astronomers to view this collection of star debris through a telescope thought it resembled the shape of an hourglass, so they gave it that name.
This January 1996 picture, taken by R. Sahai and J. Trauger of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, reveals the nebula’s detailed wispy structure and a pair of intersecting elliptical rings at the center.