7 jaw-dropping images of Ring Nebula captured by NASA

This close-up, visible-light view by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveals previously unseen details of the Ring Nebula. 

 The Hubble observations reveal that Ring Nebula's shape is more complicated than astronomers thought. 

The Ring Nebula is a well-known planetary nebula, the glowing remains of a Sun-like star.

Ring nebula is about 2,000 light-years away in the constellation Lyra. The structure measures roughly one light-year across.

The blue gas in the nebula's center is actually a football-shaped structure that pierces the red doughnut-shaped material. 

Ring Nebula was discovered by the French astronomer Antoine Darquier de Pellepoix in 1779, the Ring Nebula has an apparent magnitude of 8.8.

The inner rim of the ring displays an intricate structure of dark, irregular knots of dense gas that the stellar winds have not yet been able to blow away. The knots and their tails look like spokes in a bicycle.

Credit: NASA