This is an authentic photograph-actually a composite of photos taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and by the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona.

It depicts the Helix nebula, described by astronomers as “a trillion-mile-long tunnel of glowing gases.” At its center is a dying star, which has ejected masses of dust and gas to form tentacle-like filaments stretching toward an outer rim composed of the same material. Our own sun may look like this in several billion years.