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Written by: NASA Hubble Mission Team

Published: 07 October 2023

Though a doomed star exploded some 20,000 years ago, its tattered remnants continue racing into space at breakneck speeds — and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has caught the action.

The nebula, called the Cygnus Loop, forms a bubble-like shape that is about 120 light-years in diameter. The distance to its center is approximately 2,600 light-years. The entire nebula has a width of six full Moons as seen on the sky.

Astronomers used Hubble to zoom into a very small slice of the leading edge of this expanding supernova bubble, where the supernova blast wave plows into surrounding material in space.

Hubble images taken from 2001 to 2020 clearly demonstrate how the remnant's shock front has expanded over time, and they used the crisp images to clock its speed.

By analyzing the shock's location, astronomers found that the shock hasn't slowed down at all in the last 20 years, and is speeding into interstellar space at over half a million miles per hour – fast enough to travel from Earth to the Moon in less than half an hour.

While this seems incredibly fast, it's actually on the slow end for the speed of a supernova shock wave. Researchers were able to assemble a "movie" from Hubble images for a close-up look at how the tattered star is slamming into interstellar space.

"Hubble is the only way that we can actually watch what's happening at the edge of the bubble with such clarity," said Ravi Sankrit, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. "The Hubble images are spectacular when you look at them in detail. They're telling us about the density differences encountered by the supernova shocks as they propagate through space, and the turbulence in the regions behind these shocks."

A very close-up look at a nearly two-light-year-long section of the filaments of glowing hydrogen and ionized oxygen shows that they look like a wrinkled sheet seen from the side. "You're seeing ripples in the sheet that is being seen edge-on, so it looks like twisted ribbons of light," said William Blair of the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. "Those wiggles arise as the shock wave encounters more or less dense material in the interstellar medium." The time-lapse movie over nearly two decades shows the filaments moving against the background stars but keeping their shape.

"When we pointed Hubble at the Cygnus Loop we knew that this was the leading edge of a shock front, which we wanted to study. When we got the initial picture and saw this incredible, delicate ribbon of light, well, that was a bonus. We didn't know it was going to resolve that kind of structure," said Blair.

Blair explained that the shock is moving outward from the explosion site and then it starts to encounter the interstellar medium, the tenuous regions of gas and dust in interstellar space.

This is a very transitory phase in the expansion of the supernova bubble where invisible neutral hydrogen is heated to one million degrees Fahrenheit or more by the shock wave's passage.

The gas then begins to glow as electrons are excited to higher energy states and emit photons as they cascade back to low energy states. Further behind the shock front, ionized oxygen atoms begin to cool, emitting a characteristic glow shown in blue.

The Cygnus Loop was discovered in 1784 by William Herschel, using a simple 18-inch reflecting telescope. He could have never imagined that a little over two centuries later we'd have a telescope powerful enough to zoom in on a very tiny slice of the nebula for this spectacular view.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, in Washington, D.C.

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Written by: Elizabeth Larson

Published: 07 October 2023

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — A big rig hauling a load of cattle overturned on Highway 20 on Friday afternoon east of Clearlake Oaks, resulting in a multiagency animal rescue operation that lasted into the evening.

The California Highway Patrol first reported the crash at 12:26 p.m. near mile post marker 38 and Cache Creek, east of Clearlake Oaks.

Early reports from the scene said the truck had initially been blocking the highway.

California Highway Patrol Sgt. Joel Skeen told Lake County News at the scene Friday evening that the big rig driver was traveling eastbound on Highway 20 pulling a double-decker livestock trailer with 79 head of cattle on board.

Skeen said it appeared that the driver took the turns in that stretch of highway too fast. As a result, the big rig and trailer — the latter of which was top-heavy — flipped over onto their side.

The driver was uninjured, Skeen said.

Skeen said the truck was traveling with its load of cattle from Fortuna en route to Tennessee.

He said some of the cows were killed in the crash, but most survived.

Firefighters used a saw to cut through the metal trailer and its compartments to free the animals.

By 5:30 p.m., about 30 to 40 of the cows had been removed from the trailer, Skeen said.

Lake County Animal Care and Control staff and firefighters used metal livestock corral panels to direct the cows into pickup-drawn trailers that took them from the scene.

In addition to the CHP and Animal Care and Control, agencies that were part of the rescue — which Skeen called “quite the operation” — included Cal Fire, Northshore Fire, Caltrans, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, Lake County Fire and Lake County Environmental Health.

Skeen said at that time that it was expected to take another few hours to remove all of the animals before moving the damaged truck and trailer.

A veteran of the CHP, Skeen said the incident “is a new one for me.”

Shortly before 10 p.m., the CHP reported that both lanes of Highway 20 at the crash site were closed in order to remove the semi.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

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Written by: LAKE COUNTY NEWS REPORTS

Published: 07 October 2023

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Lake County Sheriff’s Office is asking for the community’s help in locating an Upper Lake man who was last seen in August.

Christopher Vetter, 22, was last seen in Upper Lake in the early hours of Wednesday, Aug. 9, the sheriff’s office said Friday.

Vetter is described as a white male adult, standing 5 feet 9 inches tall. He weighs 120 pounds and has a thin build, with brown medium-length hair, brown eyes and unshaven facial hair.

Authorities said Vetter has a medical condition and doesn’t have his medication.

“It is unlike him to be away from home, without contacting his family, for so long,” the agency said.

The sheriff’s office said its deputies have been working closely with Vetter’s family to gather information as to his whereabouts and follow up on all available leads.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Sgt. Jeff Mora at 707-262-4000 or via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..