Watch as the most detailed infrared view of the Helix Nebula taken to date—from the James Webb Space Telescope—is put into context using the famous visible light image from the Hubble Space Telescope. Webb zooms into a small section of the shells of gas cast off by a dying star, revealing pillars that look like comets with extended tails. The retired Spitzer Space Telescope’s studies of the Helix Nebula, also seen here in infrared light, hinted at the formation of more complex molecules, but Web

The Helix Nebula (NGC 7293), often called the Eye of God, is one of the closest planetary nebulae to Earth, located approximately 650 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius. This cosmic structure is the result of a dying, Sun-like star shedding its outer layers into space, leaving behind a white dwarf at its core. As seen in the comparison between Hubble, Spitzer, and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the nebula is famous for its intricate cometary knots—thousands of tadpole-shaped

The Helix Nebula, often nicknamed the “God’s Eye,” doesn’t produce sound in space because sound requires a medium like air to travel. However, scientists use a technique called sonification to transform data from the nebula into sound. By converting information such as light intensity, gas density, and color variations captured by telescopes into audio signals, they can create a kind of “cosmic music.” In this process, the nebula’s bright central star might be expressed as a high pitch, while su