The Double Helix Nebula is a gaseous

nebula A nebula ('cloud' or 'fog' in Latin; pl. nebulae, nebulæ or nebulas) is a distinct luminescent part of interstellar medium, which can consist of ionized, neutral or molecular hydrogen and also cosmic dust. Nebulae are often star-forming regio ...

in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus, near the center of our

galaxy A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System. ...

. It is thought to have been distorted by magnetic torsion into the shape of two connected spirals, known as a double helix, which is akin to the shape of a DNA molecule. There are infrared-luminous stars contained in the nebula that are red-giants and other supergiant stars. There are other stars contained within, but are mostly too dim to be observed. The nebula was discovered by the

Spitzer Space Telescope The Spitzer Space Telescope, formerly the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), was an infrared space telescope launched in 2003. Operations ended on 30 January 2020. Spitzer was the third space telescope dedicated to infrared astronomy, f ...

. The segment seen so far is thought to be 80

light year A light-year, alternatively spelled light year, is a large unit of length used to express astronomical distances and is equivalent to about 9.46 trillion kilometers (), or 5.88 trillion miles ().One trillion here is taken to be 1012 ...

s long, 300 light years from the supermassive black hole thought to be at the galaxy's center, and 25,000 light years from Earth. This nebula is seen as circumstantial evidence that the magnetic fields at the center of the galaxy are extremely strong, more than 1,000 times stronger than those of the Sun. If so, they may be driven by the massive disc of gas orbiting the central super-massive black hole.

References

* Emission nebulae Ophiuchus {{nebula-stub