The Spaghetti Nebula

The Spaghetti Nebula, also known as Simeis 147 or Sharpless 240, is a supernova remnant between the constellations Auriga and Taurus. It’s a very faint nebula, relatively recently discovered in 1952 by Crimean Astrophysical Observatory by Grigory Shajn and his team.

The nebula exhibits an almost spherical shell with a filamentary structure. It has an apparent diameter of about 3 degrees, a distance of approximately 3.000 light-years, and an estimated age of around 40.000 years. At this distance, its span is roughly 160 light-years.

Here’s a full moon next to the nebula for size comparison: