I’ve had requests to bring this feature back, which I am happy to do. So, here is your weekly reminder of Psalm 19 — the Bubble Nebula, up close and personal.

Click on the image to fully appreciate its grandeur.

The Bubble Nebula is a shell of gas surrounding a massive, extremely hot star that is 15 times the size and 40 times the mass of our Sun. Stellar winds from the star push the bubble of gas out, while radiation from the star excites the gas in the bubble and causes it to glow.

The nebula resides in a giant molecular gas cloud in the constellation Cassiopeia, and is about 7,100 light-years away. The Bubble itself is 3 – 5 light-years in size, which, if you could see it with your naked eye, is half the apparent size of the full Moon on the sky.

This image is a composite of images of the Bubble Nebula taken with the Hubble Space Telescope this year, created by NASA to commemorate the 26th anniversary of Hubble’s launch. The nebula is imaged separately with different filters, and then combined with false colors to create this compelling final product. What you’re seeing here is radiation from excited hydrogen (red), oxygen (green), and sulfur (deep red) atoms.

Image credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team (STScI / AURA)