Like wispy silk trailing a ballerina, remnants of an explosive supernova are seen dancing across the Swan constellation in a recently released Hubble Space Telescope image.

The blue waves in the image represent an edge-on view of glowing gas at the forefront of a supernova shock wave as it plows into the interstellar medium at more than 373,000 miles (600,000 kilometers) per hour.

The Swan is also called Cygnus, and hence the supernova remnant is called the Cygnus Loop which, not wanting for names, is also called the Veil Nebula. Nebulae are the birthplace of stars, clouds of gas and dust made visible by the reflected light from nearby stars.

The nebula was created when a massive star called it quits, but not before generating an immense explosion (the definition of a supernova). A bubble of material was expelled into space about 5,000 years ago -- a mere second in cosmic time -- and has expanded outwards ever since.

A separate ground-based image (at right) shows a much larger view of the Cygnus Loop. A small yellow circle in the upper left of that image represents the tiny portion of sky included in the Hubble picture.

By comparing the Hubble image with a 1953 photograph of the same area, scientists were able to measure how far the shock front has moved. The result shows that the supernova remnant lies much closer to Earth than previously thought, at a relatively close distance of 1,500 light-years. Scientists said this implies the explosion would have been an awesome sight for early civilizations, even visible during the day.