Hubble telescope captures remains of dead star, and it’s kind of pretty

NASA’s Hubble space telescope captured an impressive image a few days ago, revealing the beauty that exists in space.

NASA tweeted the image, showing a delicate ribbon of gold over the backdrop of stars. According to NASA’s blog, it actually depicts a small section of a supernova blast wave and Hubble was able to capture it 2,400 light years away. The yellow veil of light was actually the remnants of the now-dead star.

The blast stems from the northern Cygnus constellation, also known as the Swan. The constellation is rather large, covering an area of 36 times larger than Earth’s full moon, according to the European Space Agency, who also uses Hubble.

As for the star from which the wave stems, its supernova explosion actually happened 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. Since then, the remnant has expanded 60 light years from its center. It’s the interaction from the star’s ejected material and low-density interstellar material that creates the veil-like view.

Basically, material from the exploding star, mixed with dust and gas floating around in space, gave us a gorgeous view of an interstellar ribbon to share.