NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has snapped a stunning photo of the Veil Nebula in more exquisite detail than ever before.
The new image, released by NASA on April 2, was captured using new processing techniques that highlight small details like the nebula’s delicate thread and filaments of ionized gas, NASA said in a statement. Observations were taken by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 using five different filters. New post-processing methods were used to further enhance emissions from doubly ionized oxygen (seen in the image in blue), ionized hydrogen and ionized nitrogen (seen in red).Â
This is not the first time the Veil Nebula has been featured in a Hubble image release. The space telescope captured a less detailed, but still beautiful image of the nebula in 2017. The Veil Nebula exists about 2,100 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus, the swan, which makes it relatively close to Earth compared to other astronomical objects, NASA said in the statement.Â
Related: Hubble snaps breathtaking views of colorful Veil Nebula
The Veil Nebula is part of the nearby Cygnus Loop, which is a remnant of a supernova created about 10,000 years ago by the death of a star 20 times the mass of our sun. The cataclysmic release of energy following the star’s death resulted in the Veil Nebula’s delicate filaments of ionized gas.Â
Although only a small portion of the nebula was captured in this Hubble image, you can see larger glimpses of the nebula in Hubble’s Caldwell Catalog.
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