Thanks to new processing techniques, a NASA / ESA team of astronomers has managed to extract a small portion of the Veil Nebula, highlighting many new details of the delicate ionized threads and filaments of the beautiful nebula.
This nebula is part of a supernova remnant known as the Cygnus Loop. It is located approximately 2,400 light years distant from Earth.
It is actually a shock wave from a supernova explosion that occurred about 15,000 years ago. Its name comes from its position in the northern constellation Cygnus, where it covers an area 36 times the size of the full Moon.
"The nebula's progenitor star, which was 20 times the mass of the Sun, lived fast and died young, ending its life with a cataclysmic release of energy," said the Hubble astronomers. "Despite this stellar violence, shock waves and debris from the supernova sculpted the nebula's delicate tracery of ionized gas, creating a scene of striking astronomical beauty."
Observations taken by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) instrument through five different filters were used to create this spectacular colorful image. Doubly ionized oxygen appears blue and ionized hydrogen and ionized nitrogen appear red.
