This NASA handout shows an optical image of NGC 6543 from the first systematic survey of such objects in the solar neighborhood made with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. A planetary nebula is a phase of stellar evolution that the sun should experience several billion years from now, when it expands to become a red giant and then sheds most of its outer layers, leaving behind a hot core that contracts to form a dense white dwarf star

A planetary nebula named NGC 6302, also known as, Butterfly Nebula and Bug Nebula, in the Scorpius constellation

This infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Helix nebula, a cosmic starlet often photographed by amateur astronomers for its vivid colors and eerie resemblance to a giant eye.

 The 30 Doradus Nebula, a fertile star-forming region is seen in this panoramic mosaic portrait released by NASA July 26, 2001 of a vast, sculpted landscape of gas and dust where thousands of stars are being born. 

 

The interior of a planetary nebula glows in radient colors January 9, 2001 in an image taken by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. Astronomers unexpectedly found a central star in the late stages of life emitting powerful X-ray energy. The X-ray observations of the Cat's Eye Nebula reveal a hot gas cloud around a bright star, which is shedding its material and is expected to collapse into a white dwarf in several million years.

 

 A Hubble Space Telescope image released February 1, 2001 of the so-called "ant nebula" (Menzel 3, or Mz3) reveals the "ant's" body as a pair of fiery lobes protruding from a dying star. The Hubble images directly challenge old ideas about the last stages in the lives of stars.

 In this image taken July 2, 2011 provided by NASA Thursday Aug. 11, 2011 a giant cosmic necklace glows brightly in this Hubble Space Telescope image. The object, aptly named the Necklace Nebula, is a recently discovered planetary nebula, the glowing remains of an ordinary, Sun-like star. The Necklace Nebula is located 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagitta.

 This photograph of the coil-shaped Helix Nebula is one of the largest and most detailed celestial images ever made. The composite picture is a seamless blend of ultra-sharp images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope combined with the wide view of the Mosaic Camera on the National Science Foundation's 0.9-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Ariz.

 This image, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope February 6, 2007, shows the planetary nebula NGC 2440 - the chaotic structure of the demise of a star, a colorful "last Hurray" of a star like our Sun

 This image provided by the Hubble Space Telescope shows the striking details of the famed planetary nebula designated NGC 2818, which lies in the southern constellation of Pyxis (the Compass).

Planetary nebula IC 418, known as the Spirograph Nebula, located 2,000 light years from Earth, is seen in this photo from the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.