Stunning space snap reveals ‘ghostly’ remains of a dead star

SPACE experts have revealed a breathtaking shot showing the remnants of a star that died thousands of years ago.

The mesmerising photo features a wispy structure of pink and orange clouds, which was once a massive star called Vela.

Its life drew to a close around 11,000 years ago with an almighty explosion.

This creates what we know as a supernova.

And in space terms, it’s relatively close, at 800 light years away.

By comparison, the Pillars of Creation that were recently captured by Nasa is about 6,500 light years away from Earth.

In fact, Vela is one of the closest supernova remnants to us.

Experts from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) say the cloud stretches even bigger than what the image shows.

The 554-million-pixel pic was taken by their VLT Survey Telescope located in Chile.

It’s actually a “mosaic of observations” rather than one shot that was taken.

A huge 268-million-pixel camera was used to pull it off.

It boasts a load of filters that let through light of different colours.

“In this particular image of the Vela remnant, four different filters were used, represented here by a combination of magenta, blue, green and red,” the ESO said.

“What remains of the star is an ultra-dense ball in which the protons and electrons are forced together into neutrons — a neutron star.

“The neutron star in the Vela remnant, placed slightly outside of this image to the upper left, happens to be a pulsar that spins on its own axis at an incredible speed of more than 10 times per second.”

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