Medieval skywatchers got to see a star explode, but modern-day astronomy buffs get all the pretty pictures of its ghostly remains.
Hubble has captured a close-up of the remnant of a supernova that exploded in the Milky Way over 8000 years ago, and whose light reached Earth on 1 May 1006. The explosion is one of the brightest in recorded history and was visible with the naked eye.
The delicate-looking remnant is actually part of a shock wave from the stellar explosion. The roiling remains are still expanding, moving at a clip of about 10 million kilometres per hour.
Hubble's image is mostly a composite made from the visible light emitted by hydrogen atoms in the remnant.
Bright parts of the twisting ribbon are places where the shock wave from the explosion lies edge-on with our line of sight.
The remains of the supernova are faint in visible light, but astronomers have produced stunning images in the X-ray part of the spectrum.
View a gallery of other shimmering supernova remnants (move your mouse over the images to read the captions).
By Ross Fraser
Wed Jul 02 07:21:34 BST 2008
The article states that "Hubble has captured a close-up of the remnant of a supernova that exploded in the Milky Way on 1 May 1006." As the supernova was nearly 7,000 light-years from Earth, it may have been seen on 1 May 1006 but it exploded many millennia earlier -- about 6,000 BCE.By Anonymous
Wed Jul 02 11:25:48 BST 2008
I notice that there are stars visible in front of the remnant, this seems to me to indicate that the object itself is very very large. Has it swallowed any stars in it's neighbourhood, and it if has, what will have become of them?All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.
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18:53 05 September 2008
