Supernova Remnant IC 443

About This Photograph

When stars explode, they spew vast amounts of material into interstellar space. When this rams into existing gas and dust, the resulting shock front is as beautiful as it is chaotic. The above spectacle and an extremely dense collapsed stellar core are all that remains of a star that exploded thousands of years ago in the constellation of Gemini.

The somewhat more well-known Veil Nebula is another fine example of a supernova shock front.