The image below is a close-up of the Eastern Veil Nebula,the remnant of a supernova. It is located in the night sky towards the constellation Cygnus, giving the nebula it's second name, the Cygnus Loop. The entirety of the nebula extends to 3 degrees in the night sky which is the equivalent of 6 times the diameter of the Moon or an actual 70 light years across.The gas and debris that resulted from the supernova are still expanding in the form of a large cloud. The light from this supernova, located an astounding 1500 light-years from Earth, first reached our planet approximately five thousand years ago. The massive size of the nebula has led astronomers to identify parts of it as completely separate nebulae (i.e. Witch's Broom and Pickering's Triangle). This image was created using a compilation of image data collected through narrow band filters. The red color denotes emission from hydrogen atoms while the blue-green colors denote the strong emission from oxygen atoms.
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