This composite picture by the Hubble space telescope and several earth-bound telescopes offers a dizzying look down what is actually a  trillion-mile-long tunnel of glowing gases. The tube is pointed nearly directly at Earth, so it looks more like a bubble  than a cylinder.

The picture shows the Helix nebula. It is created late in a Sun-like star’s life by a torrential gush of gases escaping from the dying star. The Helix nebula is 650 light-years away from us, so its angular size corresponds to a huge ring diameter of nearly 3 light-years across. That’s approximately three-quarters of the distance between our Sun and the nearest star.

The picture went viral when it first came out in 2002. It was dubbed “the eye of god” by the general public. NASA never referred to it by that name.

In a few billion years, this fate could happen to our own sun. Where will our souls be then?