A giant sparkling necklace with brightly glowing diamonds: Hubble Space Telescope captured a dramatic image of a planetary nebula, aptly named ‘Necklace Nebula’. The nebula consists of a bright ring dotted with brilliant knots of gas resembling diamonds in a necklace.

The Necklace Nebula is located about 15,000 light-years away in the small constellation ‘Sagitta’. Sagitta lies within the Milky Way; its name is Latin for ‘arrow’. The recently discovered planetary nebula are the glowing remains of an ordinary sun-like star.

About 10,000 years ago, one of a pair of aging stars orbiting close together ballooned to the point where it enveloped and engulfed its companion star. The larger star began to spin so fast that much of its gaseous envelope expanded into space and due to centrifugal force; most of the gas escaped along the star’s equator, producing a dense ring.

The embedded bright knots which look like sparkling diamonds in a necklace are the densest gas clumps in the ring. Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 captured the fantastic glow of those gases: Hydrogen (blue), oxygen (green), and nitrogen (red). The ‘heavenly diamond necklace’ ring is measuring unbelievable 12 trillion miles across - about two light-years…