It's a supernova remnant, its arcs and shreds of radiance forming the roughly 3[degrees]-wide
Cygnus Loop. The easiest section of the Loop to find is NGC 6960, the Veil Nebula.
During the summer months with Cygnus high in the sky, it's an ideal time to view one of the finest such objects, known as the
Cygnus Loop or perhaps more commonly the Veil Nebula.
Images taken by the unrepaired Hubble Space Telescope had revealed such a pattern for the
Cygnus Loop, a supernova remnant 2,500 light-years from Earth (SN: 3/13/93, p.168).
The entire complex is often called the
Cygnus Loop. It's a supernova remnant--the leftovers from a star that exploded thousands of years ago.
And among the remnants of these explosions, the
Cygnus Loop - a broken, brightly lit ring measuring 137 light-years across - stands out as a prime target for observers.
Arranged in a broken shell some 3[degrees] across, these arcs are collectively known as the
Cygnus Loop or Veil Nebula.
Another Milky Way mystery revolves around a 15,000-year-old supernova remnant called the
Cygnus Loop. Astronomers have wondered whether the Loop might be part of a larger, gaseous region called the Cygnus Superbubble, which appears in the same general area of the sky.
SKYWATCHERS IN EARLY EGYPT AND MESOPOTAMIA MAY have witnessed two bright supernovae at the site of the
Cygnus Loop, one of the best-studied supernova remnants in the sky.
Astronomers working with HUT have also calculated the speed of a shock wave plowing through interstellar space from the
Cygnus Loop, a supernova remnant about 26,000 light-years from Earth.
Recently published studies detail the dynamics of ionized oxygen in the filaments of the
Cygnus Loop supernova remnant and the discovery of absorption lines from highly excited molecular hydrogen in the Dumbbell Nebula.