EnlargeNASAThis "planetary nebula" is "the glowing remains of a dying, Sun-like star." It "is nicknamed the 'Eskimo' Nebula (NGC 2392) because, when viewed through ground-based telescopes, it resembles a face surrounded by a fur parka." The "'parka' is really a disk of material embellished with a ring of comet-shaped objects, with their tails streaming away from the central, dying star. The Eskimo's 'face' also contains some fascinating details. Although this bright central region resembles a ball of twine, it is, in reality, a bubble of material being blown into space by the central star's intense 'wind' of high-speed material. In this photo, one bubble lies in front of the other, obscuring part of the second lobe. Scientists believe that a ring of dense material around the star's equator, ejected during its red giant phase, created the nebula's shape. The bubbles are not smooth like balloons but have filaments of denser matter. Each bubble is about 1 light-year long and about half a light-year wide. Scientists are still puzzled about the origin of the comet-shaped features in the 'parka.' One possible explanation is that these objects formed from a collision of slow-and fast-moving gases. The Eskimo Nebula is about 5,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Gemini. . . . The nebula's glowing gases produce the colors in this image: nitrogen (red), hydrogen (green), oxygen (blue), and helium (violet)."