Fly Through the Veil Nebula In Spectacular Visualization From The Hubble Telescope [Video]

The Veil Nebula is about 1,470 light-years away, but new videos from NASA allow you leap across the interstellar void in less than 30 seconds and then enjoy a languid flyover of the supernova remnant in a stunning 3-D visualization.

The Hubble Space Telescope, which has allowed us to peer ever deeper into the vastness of the universe since it was launched in 1990, is responsible for these stunning new images of the Veil Nebula.

In a video zoom of imagery taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA begins by highlighting familiar constellations, with Cygnus, the Swan, at the center. The image then zooms toward Cygnus and a feature referred to as the Cygnus Loop, which contains the Veil Nebula.

In a 3-D visualization created from a mosaic of six Hubble images, NASA takes us even further into a spectacular flyover of a very small portion the Veil Nebula.

According to NASA, the flyover takes us into a portion of the Veil Nebula that is only two light-years across, while the Cygnus Loop is somewhere between 90 and 150 light-years across. The glowing filaments visible in the flyover are the remnants of a massive star that went supernova some 5,000 to 8,000 years ago.

As the remnants of the supernova expand outward, they run into cool, dense interstellar gas, which results in the emission of light. NASA explains that the different colors you see in the Veil Nebula flyover visualization represent different elements, with red indicating concentrations of hydrogen, green corresponding to sulfur, and blue coming from oxygen.

Space reports that the Veil Nebula is so young that ancient human cultures could have actually witnessed the supernova that created the Cygnus Loop in the first place. The star was massive enough that it would have been visible to the naked eye, and thus familiar to human observers in the ancient past. When it went supernova, Space reports, the unnamed star would have been roughly as bright as the crescent moon and visible even during daylight hours.

As observed from the Earth, the Veil Nebula is now roughly six times larger, in diameter, than the full moon.

This isn’t the first time that the Hubble Space Telescope has revealed breathtaking imagery of nebulae and other phenomenon. Earlier this year, NASA released stunning images of cometary globules deep inside the Gum Nebula, known as “God’s Hand.”

The Hubble is also responsible for the infamous “Pillars of Creation” image that depicts towers of interstellar gas in the Eagle Nebula.

Now that the Hubble Space Telescope has taken us into the Veil Nebula, where will it take us next?

[Photo courtesy of NASA]