Together these faint gas strands make one of the most striking nebulae in the night sky. The Veil Nebula, also known as the Cygnus Loop, is a huge expanse of gas covering an area larger than the full Moon. This image shows only a small portion of it, to highlight the amazing detail within the filaments.
    The nebula was born 20,000 to 30,000 years ago, when a star many times larger than the Sun died, exploding as a dramatic supernova (similar to the recent Supernova 1987a in the Large Magellanic Cloud). Gases from the outer envelope of this star were flung outward at great speeds, forming the shell that we now see as the Veil Nebula. The Veil Nebula is much older than the Crab Nebula,