Supernova 1987A in Dorado | Hubble

Supernova 1987A in Dorado | Hubble

This image of the supernova remnant SN 1987A was taken by the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope using its Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Since its launch in 1990, Hubble has observed the expanding dust cloud of SN 1987A several times and this way helped astronomers to create a better understanding of these cosmic explosions.

Distance: 170,000 light years

Supernova 1987A is located in the center of the image amidst a backdrop of stars. The bright ring around the central region of the exploded star is composed of material ejected by the star about 20,000 years before the actual explosion took place. The supernova is surrounded by gaseous clouds. The clouds’ red color represents the glow of hydrogen gas.

The colors of the foreground and background stars were added from observations taken by Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2).

Credit: NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), and R. Kirshner (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation) and P. Challis (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)

Release Date: February 24, 2017

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