'The single most interesting object... in all of astronomy'

Arguably so, said the anonymous writer of the copy accompanying Monday's release of the most detailed image ever of the Crab Nebula (above), also the largest image ever captured by the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2).

The new graphic was assembed from 24 individual exposures.

You can learn much more about the Crab Nebula here, including the fact that Japanese and Chinese astronomers witnessed the explosion of the supernova that created it in the year 1054.

Imagine, if you will, the excitement and pleasure our descendants will have when, centuries hence, their starship takes them into the central region of this spherical structure for a spectacular fly–through.

It is unimaginable, what this exploded supernova must look like from the inside looking out.

Remember, as you gaze upon the two-dimensional picture above, that it represents only a faint hint of the full, spatially–extensive reality of this cloud of gas and starstuff.