<p>Is it a massive opal? A huge holiday ornament? A multicolored <a id="t5m2" title="Stargate" href="http://stargate.mgm.com/">stargate</a>? No, it's the leftover cloud of hot gas and dust created by a star that ended its life in a violent explosion.</p><p>The new picture of this cosmic bauble, released Tuesday, combines data from <a id="z2jc" title="NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory" href="http://chandra.harvard.edu/index.html">NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory</a> and the <a id="p2mi" title="Hubble Space Telescope" href="http://hubblesite.org/">Hubble Space Telescope</a>.</p><p>Known as SNR 0509-67.5, the supernova remnant sits about 160,000 light-years from Earth in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way galaxy. Chandra's x-ray vision shows the soft greens and blues from hot material, while Hubble's visual-light data reveals the visible, glowing pink shell of gas being superheated by an expanding shock wave.</p>

Cosmic Gem

Is it a massive opal? A huge holiday ornament? A multicolored stargate? No, it's the leftover cloud of hot gas and dust created by a star that ended its life in a violent explosion.

The new picture of this cosmic bauble, released Tuesday, combines data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope.

Known as SNR 0509-67.5, the supernova remnant sits about 160,000 light-years from Earth in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way galaxy. Chandra's x-ray vision shows the soft greens and blues from hot material, while Hubble's visual-light data reveals the visible, glowing pink shell of gas being superheated by an expanding shock wave.

Image courtesy ESA/NASA

Space Pictures This Week: Cosmic Gem, Sun Burp, Vegas

A supernova leftover glows like an opal, the sun spews hot gas, snow blankets the Midwest, and more in the week's best space pictures.

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