I don’t know about you, but I just can’t get enough of what Hubble sends back to Earth. For a space telescope that was not supposed to last this long, the images and the pictorial discoveries it continues to send back are just breathtaking.
If you don’t know the ‘almost failure’ story behind Hubble, I strongly suggest you check out the Invisible Universe Revealed documentary Nova did a while back. From the brink of failure with a precision mirror that would not focus properly, to the brave and determined mission to fix that is truly inspiring.
As a result, we get photos and reconstructed videos like the Veil Nebula that defy our imagination as to just how diverse our universe really is … and how little we knew about it until the crystal clear photos from Hubble started coming in.
Check out the article, photos and videos below that only Hubble can provide (at least for now!) …
Sept. 24, 2015
Hubble Zooms in on Shrapnel from an Exploded Star
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago.
Called the Veil Nebula, the debris is one of the best-known supernova remnants, deriving its name from its delicate, draped filamentary structures. The entire nebula is 110 light-years across, covering six full moons on the sky as seen from Earth, and resides about 2,100 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, the Swan.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the Veil Nebula – expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago. Credits: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team
This view is a mosaic of six Hubble pictures of a small area roughly two light-years across, covering only a tiny fraction of the nebula’s vast structure.
This close-up look unveils wisps of gas, which are all that remain of what was once a star 20 times more massive than our sun. The fast-moving blast wave from the ancient explosion is plowing into a wall of cool, denser interstellar gas, emitting light. The nebula lies along the edge of a large bubble of low-density gas that was blown into space by the dying star prior to its self-detonation.
The image shows an incredible array of structures and detail from the collision between the blast wave and gas and dust that make up the cavity wall …
This 3-D visualization flies across a small portion of the Veil Nebula as photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope. This region is a small part of a huge expanding remnant from a star that exploded many thousands of years ago. Hubble resolves tangled rope-like filaments of glowig gases. The 3-D model has been created for illustrative purposes and shows that that the giant bubble of gas has a thin, rippled surface. It also highlights that the emission from different chemical elements arises from different layers of gas within the nebula. In the imagery, emission from hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen are shown in red, green, and blue, respectively. Credit:
Credits: NASA, ESA, and F. Summers, G. Bacon, Z. Levay, and L. Frattare (Viz 3D Team, STScI)
…… red corresponds to the glow of hydrogen; green from sulfur; and blue from oxygen. The bluish features, outlining the cavity wall, appear smooth and arched in comparison to the fluffy green and red structures. The red glow is from cooler gas that was excited by the shock collision at an earlier time and has subsequently diffused into a more chaotic structure.
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