A Cosmic Flying Pencil — with Hair!

A spectacular image of the Pencil Nebula flying through space!

Pencil Nebula (NGC 2736) captured by ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. Credit: ESO

This odd-shaped cloud of gas and dust is nicknamed the Pencil Nebula, as the brightest part resembles a pencil. But this pencil looks like it has hair, flying off into the breeze! But that’s no simple breeze: these glowing filaments in NGC 2736 were created by a supernova explosion that took place about 11,000 years ago, and they are moving through the interstellar medium at about 650,000 kilometers (403,000 miles) per hour.

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