![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/MyCn18-crop.png/300px-MyCn18-crop.png)
The strikingly-shaped Engraved Hourglass Nebula is a planetary nebula lying about 8,000 light-years away. The cause of its curious shape is not fully understood, but may be due to a dense band of gas in the plane of the central star's equator, which is sculpting the outflowing stellar wind into the form seen.