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Light Echo
Back when I was in the music business in Nashville, “light echo” meant less reverb on a track. A “light echo”in astronomy means light from the flash of a nova or supernova being reflected by...
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The Oldest Known Supernova
This image combines data from four space telescopes to create a multi-wavelength view of all that remains of RCW 86, the oldest documented example of a supernova. Chinese astronomers witnessed the...
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Rings
In 1987, the brightest supernova (1987A) in recent history was seen in the Large Magellanic Cloud. At the center of the picture is an object central to the remains of the violent stellar explosion....
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Supernova in M101
These images from the Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) on board NASA’s SWIFT satellite show the nearby spiral galaxy M101 before and after the appearance of SN 2011fe (circled, right). The...
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A Speeding Bullet?
What is that strange blue blob on the far right of the frame? It might be a speeding remnant of a powerful supernova that was unexpectedly lopsided. The debris from supernova explosion N49 lights up...
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SN 1975D
In 1957, a supernova named SN 1957D was discovered in the spiral galaxy M83 about 15 million light years from Earth. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has made the first detection of X-rays emitted by...
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The Farthest Supernova (So Far)
This is a Hubble Space Telescope picture of supernova SN UDS10Wil, nicknamed SN Wilson, that exploded over 10 billion years ago. The small box in the top image pinpoints SN Wilson’s host galaxy. The...
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A Cosmic Puff Ball
This cosmic puff ball is the remains of the brightest supernova in recorded history. In AD 1006, a supernova lit up the nighttime skies and was seen by observers China, Egypt, Iraq, Italy, Japan, and...
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A Shell in a Fish
These thin wisps of gas are an object known as SNR 0519. The blood-red clouds are the remains from a violent explosion of a star as a supernova seen about 600 years ago. The star that exploded is known...
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A “Young” Supernova Remnant
Astronomers estimate that a supernova explosion occurs perhaps a couple of times a century in the Milky Way. The expanding blast wave and hot stellar debris slowly dissipate over hundreds of thousands...
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NGC 3370
Spiral galaxy NGC 3370 is roughly the same size and general layout as our Milky Way. It’s about 100 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Leo. It dominates the foreground of...
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A Supernova
Observers on Earth missed seeing the most recent supernova in our galaxy because it was obscured by dust clouds, but the remnant can be “seen” via x-ray astronomy. Video Credit: NASA
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Sloshing Supernova
This animation was generated the first mapping data of radioactivity in a supernova remnant, the blown-out bits and pieces of a massive star that exploded. The data was take by a NASA satellite called...
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A Zombie Star
A team of astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope has found a star system that may have left behind a “zombie star” after an unusually weak supernova explosion. A supernova normally obliterates...
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A Nearby Supernova
This past January, astronomers witnessed a supernova soon after it exploded in the galaxy known as Messier 82 or M82. Telescopes around the world and in orbit turned their attention to study this newly...
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Stars and Stripe
In 1006 A.D., observers from Africa to Europe to the Far East recorded the arrival of light from what is now called SN 1006, a tremendous supernova explosion of a white dwarf star nearly 7,000...
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X-ray Binary Circinus X-1
The youngest member of an important class of objects has been found using data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Australia Compact Telescope Array. A composite image shows the X-rays in blue...
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Mmmmm, Donuts
This is one of the early images of the remnant of a recent supernova. At 168,000 light-years distant, SN 1987A was the closest supernova observed in almost 400 years when astronomers caught sight of it...
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Our Most Recent Supernova
G1.9+0.3 is the remnant of the most recent supernova in our galaxy. It is estimated to have occurred about 110 years ago in a dusty region of the galaxy that blocked visible light from reaching Earth,...
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