Remains of a Massive StarWhere once there was a massive star shining there nw exists this beautiful emission nebula - the bright part is called the Veil Nebula. Unlike the Orion Nebula featured last month this nebula is a supernova remant associated with the end of a massive star. Stars many times more massive than our sun end their existence in a powerful explosion called a supernova - essentially the interior of the star is no longer able to suppor the massive overlying weight of the star and the star tears itself apart in a massive explosion. The shock wave from this explosion moves off into interstellar space, sweeping up material and distributing it into a supernova remnant.The filamentary structure seen in the image iscaused by viewing sheets of material edge-n. The colors are caused by different atoms, like hydrogen and oxygen, glowing at different wavelengths. This image is actually a mosaic of four images. The size of the nebula is about six times the width of the full Moon on the sky. |
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