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Tour: Supernova 1987A Pulsar Wind Nebula | NASA Chandra
Astronomers have found evidence for the existence of a neutron star at the center of Supernova 1987A (SN 1987A), which scientists have been seeking for over three decades.
Four hundred years ago a "new star" appeared in the western sky, rivaling the brilliance of the nearby planets. In fact this 'new star' was a supernova, now named Kepler's supernova, and was the last such object seen to explode in our Milky Way galaxy. Seen here are some of its remains.
Distance:13,000 light years
This image was taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) with filters onboard to isolate visible light emitted by hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen in the remnant but let through starlight from foreground and background stars. The image reveals in Kepler's supernova remnant the detailed knots, which are dense clumps that form behind the outward moving shock wave, and filamentary ribbons, which reveal where the shock wave is encountering lower-density, more uniform interstellar material.
Credit: NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
This dark, tangled web is an object named SNR 0454-67.2. It formed in a very violent fashion—it is a supernova remnant, created after a massive star ended its life in a cataclysmic explosion and threw its constituent material out into surrounding space. This created the messy formation we see in this NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope image, with threads of red snaking amidst dark, turbulent clouds.
Distance:163,000 light years
SNR 0454-67.2 is situated in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf spiral galaxy that lies close to the Milky Way. The remnant is likely the result of a Type Ia supernova explosion; this category of supernovae is formed from the death of a white dwarf star, which grows and grows by siphoning material from a stellar companion until it reaches a critical mass and then explodes.
As they always form via a specific mechanism—when the white dwarf hits a particular mass—these explosions always have a well-known luminosity, and are thus used as markers (standard candles) for scientists to obtain and measure distances throughout the Universe.
On February 24, 1987, observers in the southern hemisphere noticed a new object in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Today, we know this object as Supernova 1987A, and it was one of the brightest supernova seen in hundreds of years. Coupled with its relative proximity at about 160,000 light years from Earth, Supernova 1987A became one of the best opportunities ever for astronomers to study the phases before, during, and after the death of a star.
Since its discovery, telescopes around the world and in space have observed Supernova 1987A. This includes NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which has looked at this object repeatedly during its 23 years of science operations.
From 1999 until 2013, Chandra data showed an expanding ring of X-ray emission that had been steadily getting brighter. This was produced by the blast wave from the original explosion that had been bursting through and heating the ring of gas surrounding the supernova.
In the past few years, there have been striking changes in the Chandra data. This provides evidence that the explosion’s blast wave has moved beyond the ring into a region with less dense gas. This represents the end of an era for SN 1987A. Since astronomers do not know exactly lies beyond the ring, they will be watching carefully what happens next.
Over the next few thousand years, the expanding shell of hot gas will continue to glow in X rays. Eventually after rumbling across several thousand light years, the shell will disperse. By doing this, the supernova spreads the heavy elements created in the star and possibly triggers the formation of new stars from a cold interstellar cloud. Using data from Chandra and other telescopes, astronomers will continue to learn more about the details of this very important process that is responsible for life as we know it.
Supernova Remnant DEM L249: Aftermath of a Cosmic Cataclysm | Hubble
This image from the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope shows the tattered remnant of a supernova—a titanic explosion marking the end of the life of a dying star. This object—known as DEM L249—is thought to have been created by a Type 1a supernova during the death throes of a white dwarf. While white dwarfs are usually stable, they can slowly accrue matter if they are part of a binary star system. This accretion of matter continues until the white dwarf reaches a critical mass and undergoes a catastrophic supernova explosion, ejecting a vast amount of material into space in the process.
DEM L249 lies in the constellation Mensa and is within the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way only 160,000 light-years from Earth. The LMC is an ideal natural laboratory where astronomers can study the births, lives, and deaths of stars, as this region is nearby, oriented towards Earth, and contains relatively little light-absorbing interstellar dust. The data in this image were gathered by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 instrument, and were obtained during a systematic search of the LMC for the surviving companions of white dwarf stars which have gone supernova.
Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)/Hubble & NASA, Y. Chu
Supernova Remnant N103B in the Large Magellanic Cloud | Hubble
This image, taken with the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope, shows the supernova remnant SNR 0509-68.7, also known as N103B (top of the image). N103B was a Type Ia supernova, located in the Large Magellanic Cloud—a neighboring galaxy of the Milky Way. Owing to its relative proximity to Earth, astronomers observe the remnant to search for a potential stellar survivor of the explosion.
Distance:150,000 light years
The orange-red filaments visible in the image show the shock fronts of the supernova explosion. These filaments allow astronomers to calculate the original center of the explosion. The filaments also show that the explosion is no longer expanding as a sphere, but is elliptical in shape. Astronomers assume that part of material ejected by the explosion hit a denser cloud of interstellar material, which slowed its speed. The shell of expanding material being open to one side supports this idea.
The gas in the lower half of the image and the dense concentration of stars in the lower left are the outskirts of the star cluster NGC 1850.
A violent and chaotic-looking mass of gas and dust is seen in this Hubble Space Telescope image of a nearby supernova remnant. Denoted N 63A, the object is the remains of a massive star that exploded, spewing its gaseous layers out into an already turbulent region.
Distance:150,000 light years
Credit:ESA/Hubble (M. Kornmesser & L. L. Christensen)
While appearing as a delicate and light veil draped across the sky, this image from the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope actually depicts a small section of the Cygnus supernova blast wave, located around 2,400 light-years away. The name of the supernova remnant comes from its position in the northern constellation of Cygnus (The Swan), where it covers an area 36 times larger than the full moon.
The original supernova explosion blasted apart a dying star about 20 times more massive than our Sun between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago. Since then, the remnant has expanded 60 light-years from its center. The shockwave marks the outer edge of the supernova remnant and continues to expand at around 350 kilometers per second. The interaction of the ejected material and the low-density interstellar material swept up by the shockwave forms the distinctive veil-like structure seen in this image.
Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)/Hubble & NASA, W. Blair
Blast Wave from a Stellar Explosion: Supernova 1987A Simulation | Hubble
This scientific visualization shows the development of Supernova 1987A, from the initial blast observed three decades ago to the luminous ring of material we see today.
Distance: 170,000 light years
The sequence, using data from a computer simulation, begins with the star before it exploded. A ring of material around the star was expelled about 20,000 years before the supernova outburst. A flash of light signals the stellar explosion. The supernova sends a blast wave outward from the dying star. As the blast wave slams into the ring, high-density knots of material become intensely heated and glow brightly, while lower-density gas is blown outward. The computer simulation provides one data set per year, and thus the visualization steps between them at four years per second. Upon reaching 2017, the time development is halted, and the camera circles around the ring to showcase its structure.
Visualization Credit: NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), and F. Summers and G. Bacon/ Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)
Simulation Credit: S. Orlando (INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo)
A violent and chaotic-looking mass of gas and dust is seen in this Hubble Space Telescope image of a nearby supernova remnant. Denoted N 63A, the object is the remains of a massive star that exploded, spewing its gaseous layers out into an already turbulent region.
Distance:150,000 light years
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, HEIC, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Acknowledgment: Y.-H. Chu and R. M. Williams (UIUC)
This video starts with a view of the night sky as seen from the ground and zooms in onto the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. A further zoom shows the remnants of the supernova explosion 1987A, nestled between red-colored gas, as they are seen by Hubble. The site of the supernova is surrounded by a ring of material that is illuminated by a wave of energy from the outburst. Two faint outer rings are also visible. All three of these rings existed before the explosion.
Distance: 170,000 light years
Credit: NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), and G. Bacon/Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)
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)
Globular Star Cluster Messier 4: Wide-field View | ESO
This wide-field view is centered on the globular star cluster Messier 4 (NGC 6121) in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion). It is a color composite made from exposures from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 (DSS2). The smaller globular cluster at the upper left is NGC 6144. It is similar to Messier 4, but more than three times further away. The red glow of clouds of hydrogen and associated star formation can also be seen in the upper left corner and the bright star Sigma Scorpii can be seen at the upper right.
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/Digitized Sky Survey 2
Canadarm2 Maneuvers EMIT | International Space Station
At right, the Canadarm2 robotic arm maneuvers the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation, or EMIT, after retrieving it from the trunk of the SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft. EMIT was installed on ExPRESS Logistics Carrier-1 (top center) on the port side of the International Space Station's truss structure. The station's main solar arrays are also seen extending from the port truss segment. EMIT is a mineral dust source observation experiment that explores the Earth’s mineral dust cycle.
An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The ISS has been the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken.
Learn more about the important research being operated on the International Space Station:
This image from the Wide Field Imager attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla Observatory shows the spectacular globular star cluster Messier 4. This great ball of ancient stars is one of the closest of such stellar systems to the Earth and appears in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion) close to the bright red star Antares.
Panning across Globular Star Cluster Messier 4 | ESO
This video gives a close-up view of an image from the Wide Field Imager attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the European Southern Observatory's La Silla Observatory showing the spectacular globular star cluster Messier 4. This great ball of ancient stars is one of the closest such stellar systems to the Earth and appears in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion) close to the bright red star Antares.
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