La bolla gassosa SNR 0509, nella Grande Nube di Magellano

This image provided by NASA Tuesday Dec. 14, 2010 shows a delicate sphere of gas, photographed by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, floats serenely in the depths of space. The pristine shell, or bubble, is the result of gas that is being shocked by the expanding blast wave from a supernova. Called SNR 0509-67.5 (or SNR 0509 for short), the bubble is the visible remnant of a powerful stellar explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a small galaxy about 160,000 light-years from Earth.

(AP Photo/NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team)