-19-

"And if the sky is torn apart to become a rose as in a painting,

then which of your Lord"s marvels can you deny?"

55:37-38

No star lives forever - our own Sun included. After a star has used up all its nuclear fuel, it throws off its outer layers and then fades away.

The picture shown here was taken by the NASA Hubble Space Telescope. It reveals the "Cat"s Eye Nebula" which is an exploding star that lies 3,000 light years away from us.

The features seen in the "Cat"s Eye" are so complex that astronomers suspect the bright central object may actually be a binary star system. The term planetary nebula, used to describe this general class of objects, is misleading. Although these objects may appear round and planet-like in small telescopes, high resolution images reveal them to be stars surrounded by cocoons of gas blown off in the late stages of stellar evolution. They were named planetary nebulae over a century ago because through the small telescopes of the day, they resembled planets.

What is truly amazing is that this rose-like image is specifically mentioned in the Quran. The Quran was revealed 1400 years ago!

Maybe the astronomer"s should have given it the more appropriate name of the "Red Rose Nebula".