Cygnus Loop

[thesummerqueen]

Wispy tendrils of hot dust and gas glow brightly in this ultraviolet image of the Cygnus Loop nebula, taken by NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer. The nebula lies about 1,500 light-years away, and is a supernova remnant, left over from a massive stellar explosion that occurred between 5,000 to 8,000 years ago. The Cygnus Loop extends over three times the size of the full moon in the night sky, and is tucked next to one of the "swan’s wings" in the constellation of Cygnus.

The filaments of gas and dust visible here in ultraviolet light were heated by the shockwave from the supernova, which is still spreading outward from the original explosion. The original supernova would have been bright enough to be seen clearly from Earth with the naked eye.

NASA's been showing some good ones.

[Jackalope]

This one is Barnard's Loop.

To give you a sense of scale, the three bright stars up and right from the center are Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka, the three stars of Orion's belt, and the bright blue nebula down and right from center is M42, the Orion Nebula.

[Zen Badger]

This is still my favorite



We actually have a framed print of this hanging over our bed.

[orogenicman]

Just to be clear, the Cygus loop (also known as the veil nebula) is a supernova remnant, while Barnard's loop is a broad galactic region of ionized gas and dust.

Here is an image of the cygnus loop using a partial "Hubble pallet", which in this case consists of filters for hydrogen alpha emission (green in this instance), and triply ionized oxygen (blue).



Here is my image of the eastern veil Nebula:

[thesummerqueen]

I still like the rose picture you put up once. I think about it sometimes randomly.

[orogenicman]

Glad you liked it. I hope to get a better version of that by the end of the year. Here is a Hubble color-mapped image of the Rosette nebula done by someone else (Not sure who):