A nebula containing an Illyrian colony world with an atmosphere hostile to humans, which Captain Pike visits to ask the lawyer Neera Ketoul to defend Una Chin-Riley.
The Vaultera Nebula is the location of a planet settled by Illyrians, a people who alter their own bodies genetically in order to suit the worlds they live on. The planet's air cannot be breathed by humans.
It appears in the Strange New Worlds episode Ad Astra per Aspera. With Una Chin-Riley facing a court martial for concealing her Illyrian heritage from Starfleet, Christopher Pike travels to the colony wearing a breathing mask to seek out Neera Ketoul, a civil rights lawyer and a childhood friend of Una.
Neera at first refuses, resentful of both Una and the Federation, and leaves Pike waiting in her office until his oxygen runs low. She finally agrees to take the case, seeing a chance to challenge the Federation's laws against genetic modification.