NASA has released beautiful and breathtaking new images of the Veil Nebula recently captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. Using a new Wide Field Camera 3, the Hubble Space Telescope was able to capture a section of the Veil Nebula in stunning detail.

The Veil Nebula is one of the best-known supernova remnants and is found in the constellation Cygnus, which is about 2,100 light years away from Earth. The gas and dust remnants came from the violent death of a star that exploded 8,000 years ago. The source star was revealed to have been 20 times the mass of the Sun.

William Herschel, an astronomer, was the first to observe the Veil Nebula in Sept. 5, 1785. The observed supernova remnant derived its name, Veil Nebula, from its delicate and draped filamentary structures. The Hubble Space Telescope was only able to photograph a tiny fraction of the nebula's massive structure. The Veil Nebula, in its entirety, spans 110 light years across or about 36 times the area of the full moon.

The photographs reveal the colorful wisps of gas that comprise the nebula. According to NASA, astronomers suspect that when the source star exploded, it expelled a strong stellar wind that "blew a large cavity into the surrounding interstellar gas." The shock wave expands outwards and forms the Veil Nebula's distinct structure. The colorful nature of the nebula is due to different temperatures and densities of chemical elements present. These elements have been revealed to be oxygen, sulfur and hydrogen.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope first photographed the Veil Nebula back in 1997 using the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. By comparing images obtained in 1997 with these newer images, scientists have been able to see how far the nebula has expanded in the past 18 years.

NASA also released an HD 3D visualization video of the Veil Nebula that reveal its spectacular nature.