January 27, 2013
The Spaghetti Nebula, a supernova remnant in Taurus
Image Credit: Digitized Sky Survey, ESA/ESO/NASA FITS Liberator
Color Composite: Davide De Martin (Skyfactory)
The Spaghetti Nebula (designated Simeis 147 and Sh2-240) is an extremely faint, fairly large supernova remnant of about of 150 light-years across, located some 3,000 light-years away in the constellation of Taurus.
The violent stellar explosion that created the Spaghetti Nebula left behind all that remains of the original star’s core: a spinning neutron star known as pulsar PSR J0538+2817, surrounded by intricate filaments of material.
This expanding remnant has an expansion rate of about 950 kilometers (nearly 600 miles) per second, and is approximately 40,000 years old.