Posts Tagged ‘supernova’
June 12, 2011
tte-77
Supernova 1987A - Credit: Pete Challis (CfA)
In 1987 the light from an exploding star in the Large Magellanic Cloud reached Earth. Supernova 1987A (SN 1987A) was the closest supernova explosion seen in 400 years. Astronomers have studied closely, watching the debris fade over the years. On June 8, 2011 a team of astronomers led by Josefin Larsson, University of Stockholm, announced that the supernova debris is brightening marking the transition from a supernova to a supernova remnant.
As the image shows, SN 1987A is surrounded by a ring of material. Astronomers say this material blew off the progenitor star thousands of years before it exploded. The ring is about 1 light-year (6 trillion miles) across and inside that ring, the “guts” of the star – released in the supernova explosion seen from Earth in 1987 – are rushing outward in an expanding cloud of debris.
The supernova’s light originates from radioactive decay of the elements created in the explosion fading over time as a result. However, the brightening debris from SN 1987A suggests that a new power source is lighting it.
In other words, the debris of SN 1987A is beginning to impact the surrounding ring, creating powerful shock waves that generate X-rays – observed with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Those X-rays are illuminating the supernova debris, and shock heating is making it glow. The same process powers well-known supernova remnants in our galaxy like Cassiopeia A.
Being so young, the remnant of SN 1987A still shows the history of the last few thousand years of the star’s life recorded in the knots and whorls of gas. By studying it further, astronomers may be able to decode that history.
Eventually, that history will be lost when the bulk of the expanding stellar debris hits the surrounding ring and shreds it. Until then, SN 1987A continues to offer an amazing opportunity to watch a cosmic object change over the course of a human lifetime.
Source: EarthSky
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Posted in Chandra, Hubble, NASA, Supernova, tte-77 | Tagged 1987, 2011, Astronomers, Astronomy, astrophotography, Cassiopeia, chandra, debris, earth, exploding, galaxy, hubble, images, June, Large Magellanic Cloud, NASA, photography, postaweek2011, remnant, skywatching, SN 1987A, space, star, supernova, telescope, x-ray | Leave a Comment »
May 24, 2011
by yaska77
This new large Chandra image shows the “Carina Nebula“, a star-forming region in the Sagittarius-Carina arm of the Milky Way only 7,500 light years from Earth.
Chandra’s sharp X-ray vision has detected over 14,000 stars in this region, revealed in a diffuse X-ray glow, and provided strong evidence that massive stars have already self-destructed in this fantastic “supernova factory”.
Carina Nebula (Click to enlarge, it's big!) - Credit: NASA/CXC/PSU/L.Townsley et al.
Lower energy X-rays in this image are red, medium energy X- rays are green, and the highest energy X-rays are blue. The Chandra survey has a large field of 1.4 square degrees, made of a mosaic of 22 individual Chandra pointings.
In total, this image represents 1.2 million seconds – or nearly two weeks – of Chandra observing time. Multi-wavelength data has been used in combination with this new Chandra campaign, including infrared observations from the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Very Large Telescope (VLT).
Full article at Chandra site
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Posted in Chandra, Image gallery, NASA, Nebula, Supernova, yaska77 | Tagged astrophotography, carina, chandra, composite, CXC, earth, factory, imaging, large, milky way, NASA, Nebula, postaweek2011, PSU, sagittarius, space, Spitzer, star-forming, Stars, supernova, telescope, very, VLT, x-ray | 1 Comment »
May 11, 2011
by tte-77
The Crab Nebula
On the 12 April the Crab Nebula shocked astronomers by emitting an unprecedented blast of gamma rays which lasted for 6 days. Gamma rays are the highest-energy light in the Universe.
The cause of the flare, described at the Third Fermi Symposium in Rome, is a total mystery.
It seems to have come from a small area of the famous nebula, which is the wreckage from an exploded star.
The object has long been considered a steady source of light, but the Fermi telescope hints at greater activity. The NASA Fermi space observatory is designed to measure only the most energetic light – gamma rays, which emanate from the Universe’s most extreme environments and violent processes.
The Crab Nebula is composed mainly of the remnant of a supernova, which was seen on Earth to rip itself apart in the year 1054.
At the heart of the brilliantly coloured gas cloud we can see in visible light, there is a pulsar – a rapidly spinning neutron star that emits radio waves which sweep past the Earth 30 times per second. But so far none of the nebula’s known components can explain the signal Fermi sees, said Roger Blandford, director of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, US.
“The origin of these high-energy gamma rays has to be some other source,” he told BBC News. (read more)
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Posted in NASA, Nebula, Supernova, tte-77 | Tagged April, Astronomy, BBC, Crab Nebula, gamma, gamma-ray, NASA, Nebula, postaweek2011, skywatching, space, supernova, telescope, Universe | Leave a Comment »
March 25, 2011
by yaska77
Following on from my recent post about the Supernova Remnant “Bubble” captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, pictured below is a new Chandra image of the SNR (supernova remnant) of Tycho, a white dwarf star in our own galaxy in the constellation Cassiopiea (visible from the Northern Hemisphere).
Low energy X-Rays are red, high energy X-Rays are blue, emitted by extremely hot gas in the supernova, this emission traces the magnetic fields in the gas (which is actually ionized and therefore a plasma).
It’s expanding out from the blast location at thousands of kilometers per second (measured at around 55 light years across), all from an explosion that gave off more energy than our Sun will over its entire life!
More information can be found on the Chandra website here and is well worth a read. Damn I love this stuff!
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Posted in Chandra, Galaxy, Hubble, Image gallery, NASA, Stars, Supernova, yaska77 | Tagged Cassiopeia, chandra, postaweek2011, SNR, supernova, Tycho, x-ray | 3 Comments »
March 17, 2011
by yaska77
Ok, so it’s not *new* news, but fascinating none-the-less…
Source: Hubblesite.org
This image is a composite of several taken by the Hubble Space Telescope (compiled late last year), first using a filter to isolate light from glowing hydrogen (as seen in the expanding shell) then combining it with visible-light images of the surrounding star field (as taken using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3).
This explosive death of a supernova is known as (Supernova Remnant) SNR 0509 and is 160,000 light years from Earth. Although it looks pretty serene the vast bubble of gas is 23 light years across and expanding at over 11 million miles per hour!
Larger images can be seen here
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Posted in Galaxy, Hubble, Image gallery, NASA, Supernova, yaska77 | Tagged composite image, hubble, NASA, postaweek2011, SNR 0509, supernova | 1 Comment »
