The Helix Nebula — famously nicknamed the "Eye of Sauron" — stares back at us from the depths of space as one of the most breathtaking and closest planetary nebulae in the sky.Located just ~650 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius, this cosmic masterpiece (also known as NGC 7293) is the glowing remnant of a Sun-like star in its dramatic death throes. As the star exhausted its nuclear fuel, it ballooned into a red giant and then violently shed its outer layers — expelling them into space at tremendous speeds. What's left is a scorching white dwarf core, no larger than Earth but blazing with intense ultraviolet radiation that lights up the ejected gas like a neon sign.From our vantage point on Earth, we peer straight down a trillion-mile-long tunnel of glowing hydrogen and oxygen — creating the illusion of a perfect, eerie eye with a bright central pupil (the white dwarf) surrounded by intricate rings and filaments. Those delicate, comet-like knots and wispy strands are dense clumps of gas and dust that have stubbornly survived the star's explosive final outbursts.Though it appears as a flat, ring-like structure in many images, the Helix is actually a three-dimensional helix or cylindrical shell — a complex, somewhat chaotic expanding bubble sculpted by the dying star's winds and radiation. Spanning nearly 3 light-years across (roughly half the distance to the nearest star), it's one of the largest and most detailed planetary nebulae we can study up close.This mesmerizing "final breath" of a star offers astronomers a rare, vivid snapshot of how average stars like our Sun will one day end their lives — gently (by cosmic standards) dispersing their material to seed the next generation of stars and planets.(Source: NASA / Jet Propulsion Laboratory-Caltech A haunting cosmic eye, captured in stunning detail — reminding us that even stars have dramatic finales.