This is a Hubble image of a tiny piece of the Veil Nebula. This wisp of heated and ionized gas was created somewhere between 5,000 or 8,000 years ago when a star exploded. It's hard to gauge the distance to this object but recent findings place it about 1,470 light years away. I've always loved pictures of this nebula although the view through a telescope shows only faint and difficult to see pale smudges that are completely devoid of colour. The Veil Nebula is about 70 light years across, assuming the distance mentioned above is correct. To give you an idea of the size, the planet Neptune is only 4.16 light HOURS away from the sun. Imagine our Solar System only 1 meter across then the Veil Nebula would be 83 kilometers across. So what made me think about this. I came across a fantastic website where you can look at the Veil Nebula as a 3D object. The images only rotate slightly but it's enough to see the shape of the objects. If you follow the second link it will take you to the website where you can more.
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