Today in Pretty Space Pics: The Flowerlike Ring Nebula

The Ring Nebula Composite Image Data - Subaru Telescope (NAOJ), Hubble Legacy Archive; Processing and additional imaging - Robert Gendler

Gaze into the center of the Ring Nebula, which appears from Earth's vantage to be a "barrel-shaped cloud of glowing gas." Let it take your mind away from Earthly concerns, from taxes and homework and bosses and bills and hangnails. Let it relax you like a spa treatment in which you are plunged into a bath of exotic foreign muds in a container made of exotic foreign woods. Let it open your mind to the wonders of the universe, which dwarf your problems, even your roommate who opened a brand-new box of Triscuits without asking. It's one thing to eat a few crackers, but to open a new box, to unseal the inner bag? That's just--no. Look at the nebula. Relax. [APOD]