Like smoke rings wafting within the air, the pink and orange wisps of the Vela supernova remnant disperse throughout space on this 554-million-pixel picture captured by the ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope in Chile.
Positioned some 800 light-years away within the constellation Vela the Sails, the Vela supernova remnant is what stays of an enormous star that exploded greater than 11,000 years in the past. Because the doomed star’s outer layers raced outward, they tore via surrounding fuel, compressing and heating it as much as type the gorgeous filaments seen above.
Simply outdoors of body to the higher left resides the collapsed core of the as soon as gigantic star. This neutron star additionally occurs to be a pulsar, emitting radiation and spinning on its axis 10 occasions per second.
According to an ESO press release, researchers used the wide-field OmegaCam instrument to seize this shot of the expansive Vela supernova remnant, which may match 9 Full Moons throughout the similar body.
