"LET THERE BE LIGHTS IN THE FIRMAMENT OF THE HEAVEN"

This photograph of the coil-shaped Helix Nebula, released Friday May 9, 2003, 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. The image shows a fine web of filamentary 'bicycle-spoke' features embedded in the colorful red and blue ring of gas. At 650 light-years away, the Helix is one of the nearest planetary nebulae to Earth. A planetary nebula is the glowing gas around a dying, Sun-like star.


(AP Photo/NASA)