MinxterBLOOM

which is quite wonderful. Here is a 2005 NASA image from the Spitzer Telescope image bank that fanciful observers call flowerlike. NASA says the nebula evokes a camellia blossom. One JPL group sees the flower as Raffelisia-like. Another scientist says the flower is more a crysanthemum-shape. Anyhoooo....the astral body is a nebula. Read more here at NASA's website.

Located about 2,000 light years from us in the constellation Lyra, the Ring Nebula is a favorite night body of backyard astronomers.

Corolla of petals The "ring" is a thick cylinder of glowing gas and dust around a dying star. Previous images of the Ring Nebula taken by visible-light telescopes usually showed just the inner glowing loop of gas around the star. The outer regions of this doomed body are especially prominent in this new image because Spitzer "sees" the infrared light from hydrogen molecules.

Button center The implosion of what was once a star.

Flowers, like stars, are finite creatures. Yet, they do bewitch us for a time.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Harvard-Smithsonian CfA