The Gum Nebula was an immense, diffuse nebula in the Beta Quadrant of the Milky Way Galaxy. The remnant of a supernova over a million years earlier, by the human era, it was over 1,000 light-years across and highly attenuated, but nonetheless one of the largest, and most impressive, astronomical features of the Orion Arm. The nebula was so large that it could have held the entire United Federation of Planets and all its galactic neighbors with significant room to spare.
The edges of the nebula nearest to Federation-local space were nearly a month beyond Starbase 185, and had only been briefly visited by the Catullans, Klingons, and a few Starfleet vessels such as the USS Excelsior in the early 2290s and USS Olympia in the 2360s. However, the majority of the nebula and its environs had not been systematically explored by Federation or its neighbors until the 2380s.
In early 2380, the USS Titan and USS Ganymede were assigned to survey the region, with Titan taking the coreward half and Ganymemde the rimward half. Shortly after passing the furthest point Olympia had reached during her mission, the Titan crew discovered the Gum Nebula was home to many cosmozoan species, including the star-jellies and Branchers, and some others that were first discovered by the USS Intrepid in the 23rd century. Theorizing that stellar nurseries like the nearby Vela Association and similar star clusters, they found more cozmozoan species as they proceeded towards Vela, discovering an intragalactic ecosystem of spaceborne life. (TTN novel: Orion's Hounds)
External links[]
- Gum Nebula article at Memory Beta, the non-canon Star Trek wiki.
- Gum Nebula article at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.