Planetary nebula are formed when lower mass stars such as our own Sun collapse from Red Giants into white dwarfs. The gas that once made up the atmosphere and shell of the star is ejected outwards to form often a beautiful orb around the central white dwarf, that is, unless the system is a binary system.
Binary systems mean other stars interrupt how the gas is blown off, twisting and contorting the orb into often cone shaped nodes that fly off in opposite directions.
NGC 5189 may not look like it is doing this, however it is. There are two distinct outflows, one to the North East and another to the South West of this image, heading in complete opposite directions to each other.
The name of the nebula comes from the fact it appears from Earth to have an S shape, similar to how a barred spiral galaxy looks.
However it’s MUCH closer to home at just 1,780 light years, rather than millions of light years.
