SUMMARY: NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope took this image of a dying star in the middle of a doughnut of leftover gas and dust. The dying star is is part of a planetary nebula, called NGC 246, which used to be similar to our own Sun, but it expended all its fuel and then boiled off its outer layers. Spitzer "sees" in the infrared spectrum, which allows it to peer through most of the obscuring material and get a much better look at the star and its surroundings. NGC 246 is located 1,800 light-years away in the Cetus constellation of our galaxy.

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The observation of a mysterious ring of material, first around SN1987A and now around another dying star, is great news.

Such observations may help us understand how our planetary system formed out of fresh stellar debris 4-5 Gy ago.

With kind regards,

Oliver
http://www.umr.edu/~om

Or what our star will look like in 4-5 Gys

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Mysterious? Should we send Scooby-Doo to investigate? I don't think so. We see rings in many places, and SN1987a was certainly not the first. Discounting Saturn, I'm guessing the first observed ring was probably the Ring Nebula in Lyra [which is also a ring around a dying star].

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Forming opinions as we speak

You are right, Anton.

There is also the ring of planets orbiting the Sun.

Oliver
http://www.umr.edu/~om