Cosmic GemIs 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.

Published December 16, 2010