The Vela Supernova Remnant: "Like a Giant Ghostly Bird" | ESO

The Vela Supernova Remnant: "Like a Giant Ghostly Bird" | ESO

The Vela constellation is visible with the naked eye in the southern sky, but you might miss a lot of details hidden there. This is a small patch of the Vela supernova remnant, the intricate leftovers of the explosion of a massive star 11,000 years ago. The Vela supernova remnant is one of the closest known to us. This image is part of a huge and detailed mosaic captured with the VLT Survey Telescope (VST), hosted at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in the Chilean desert.

Pink and orange filamentary clouds swarm around in this picture, resembling the ghostly shadow of a cosmic bird with wide orange wings, a long pink body, and a bright pinkish star as an eye. A myriad of stars are sprinkled all over the image.

At the center of the image, there is a pink network of filaments, elongated from upper-left to lower-right. In the upper part of these filaments, in the opposite direction, from upper-right to lower-left, filamentary orange clouds fill the space. Nearby, dark red filaments and clouds fill the space. There are clouds that have a well-defined filamentary shape, while others are more blurred and cloudy-shaped. Spread all over the picture, bright yellow, blue and reddish stars populate the image. The dark background is almost completely hidden by all these features.

When massive stars reach the end of their life they explode as supernovae, expelling their outer layers. These explosions send out shock waves that move through the surrounding gas, compressing and reshaping it. This is what creates the intricate structure of filaments seen here. They shine brightly because of the energy released during the explosion.

Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/VPHAS+ Team

Acknowledgement: CASU

Release Date: Jan. 15, 2024

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