One of my favorite nebulae in the sky is Barnard's Loop, a huge arc of material that's formed either by the expanding gas from supernovae or the winds of all the massive stars being born in the Orion complex.
There's a rare kind of supernova explosion that's like a standard interstellar headlight – it's about 5 billion times brighter than our sun, and, crucially, it's very consistent in its brightness.
The expanding debris from this thousand year-old supernova is still moving into space at about 5 million kilometers per hour But the image is more than just a snapshot of ancient history.
These stars existed over 13 billion years ago but had short lifespans of only 3 million years before undergoing supernova explosions, giving rise to the second-generation stars observed by the researchers.