Watch a supernova blast its way through space over 30 years
Meteorologist/Science Writer
Monday, February 27, 2017, 10:12 AM - Supernova 1987A was the closest stellar explosion ever witnessed by telescope, and is the best studied in all of history. Now see what the Hubble Space Telescope has been seeing from it over the past 30 years.
On February 23, 1987, a bright new "star" appeared in the night sky of the southern hemisphere, and continued to brighten for over two months.
This wasn't a new star, though, but the violent death of a massive, old star, as it tore itself apart in an incredibly bright explosion, known as a supernova.
Named Supernova 1987A by astronomers, in the 30 years since, this has become the best known, best imaged and most studied supernova ever, and we now have a collection of images that show the evolution of this explosion, thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope.
The hourglass shape at the centre of this image is Supernova 1987A, with its two dim outer rings of debris, surrounding a bright inner ring lit by the incredible forces of this explosion. Credit: NASA, ESA, and R. Kirshner (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation) and P. Challis (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
Of particular interest to the astronomers is the bright central ring, and the activity in and around that ring, which Hubble has spotted over time.
Watch Below: See the shockwave from Supernova 1987A slam into a ring of matter and light it up!
Below are still images from the Hubble sequence, above.
Stills of SN 1987A from 1994 to 2016, showing the brightening of the inner ring of gas around the exploded star. Credits: NASA, ESA, and R. Kirshner (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation), and P. Challis (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
Based on observations, the astronomers now know that the matter that comprises the inner ring was ejected from the star some 20,000 years before it went supernova. It only lit up brightly once the shockwave from the supernova caught up with it.
According to the ESA/Hubble site:
The initial burst of light from the supernova illuminated the rings. They slowly faded over the first decade after the explosion, until the shock wave of the supernova slammed into the inner ring in 2001, heating the gas to searing temperatures and generating strong X-ray emission. Hubble’s observations of this process shed light on how supernovae can affect the dynamics and chemistry of their surrounding environment, and thus shape galactic evolution.
The three-dimensional structure of the inner ring is quite amazing to see, as the computer simulation below (based on the detailed observations by Hubble) reveals.
Credits: NASA, ESA, and F. Summers and G. Bacon (STScI); Simulation Credit: S. Orlando (INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo)
With 30 years of observations of this supernova, SN 1987A has revolutionized what astronomers know about the deaths of massive stars.
Sources: NASA | ESA Hubble Space Telescope
