One of the most famous and beautiful cosmic sights shows its colors in this new image from the Hubble Space Telescope. The Veil Nebula is the remnant of a massive star which exploded in a supernova 10,000 years ago, leaving behind a striking structure of dust and gas that has a delicate draped shape from which the object gets its name.
The star which created the nebula was huge, at 20 times the mass of the sun, and its explosion was so epic it would have been brighter than Venus in the sky over Earth, despite being located 2,400 light-years away. Over time, the effects of that explosion have continued to spread, creating the structure we see today.
Hubble has imaged the Veil Nebula before, most recently in 2015, but this newer image zooms in on a smaller area of the nebula to show it in detail. Its colors also represent different elements which are present in the nebula, allowing scientists to track the distinct chemistry of the region.
You can see the image in full below:
“This view combines images taken in three different filters by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, highlighting emission from hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen atoms. The image shows just a small fraction of the Veil Nebula; if you could see the entire nebula without the aid of a telescope, it would be as wide as six full Moons placed side-by-side,” Hubble scientists explain.
“Although this image captures the Veil Nebula at a single point in time, it helps researchers understand how the supernova remnant evolves over decades. Combining this snapshot with Hubble observations from 1994 will reveal the motion of individual knots and filaments of gas over that span of time, enhancing our understanding of this stunning nebula.”
And you can also compare this image with the original images Hubble took back in 1994 and 1997, showing details of different parts of the nebula:
With more than 30 years elapsed between some of these images, scientists can see how the structure changes over time — and demonstrate how Hubble continues to provide stunning images of space, even as it approaches its 35th anniversary since launch.
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.