Explanation:
This shock wave
plows through space at over 500,000 kilometers per hour.
Moving toward to bottom of this
beautifully
detailed color composite, the thin, braided filaments are actually
long ripples in a sheet of glowing gas seen almost edge on.
Cataloged
as NGC 2736, its narrow
appearance
suggests its popular name,
the Pencil Nebula.
About 5 light-years long and a mere 800 light-years away, the
Pencil Nebula
is only a small part of the
Vela
supernova remnant.
The Vela remnant itself
is around 100 light-years in diameter and is the expanding
debris
cloud of a star that was seen to
explode about 11,000 years ago.
Initially, the shock wave was moving at millions of kilometers
per hour but has
slowed considerably, sweeping up
surrounding interstellar gas.
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