Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Hubble Captures Veil Nebula

Veil Nebula

The Hubble Space Telescope has caught just-released snapshots of the 1500-light-year-distant Veil Nebula, the remnants of a supernova, or star explosion, that happened a few as five thousand years ago.

The Hubble close-ups reveal the rope-like filaments of gas in the nebula, which resulted from enormous amounts of dusty debris plowing into gaseous surroundings. Thicker filaments of material result from viewing the supernova’s shock wave edge-on, while more wispy and diffuse views correspond to a face-on view of other parts of the shock wave from Earth.

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