Telescope captures the remnants of a supernova first seen 2,000 years ago

By Georgina Torbet Published March 4, 2023

Some of the most dramatic events in the universe are supernovae, which happen either when massive stars run out of fuel and come to the end of their lives, or when a star in a binary feeds on its companion until it reaches a critical threshold.

The star explodes outward in a huge outpouring of light and energy, which is bright enough to be seen from other galaxies but quickly fades. After the flash has faded, however, something is left behind: a dense core that can become a black hole or neutron star, and sometimes an elaborate and beautiful structure called a supernova remnant.

Recommended Videos

Astronomers recently captured one such remnant called RCW 86, which is the result of a supernova that was observed by Chinese astronomers in the year 185 C.E. The image was taken using the Dark Energy Camera at the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, which was originally designed for use in the Dark Energy Survey but has been used for a variety of research since completing the survey in 2019.

A ring of glowing debris is all that remains of a white dwarf star that exploded more than 1800 years ago when it was recorded by Chinese astronomers as a ‘guest star’ — The tattered shell of the first-ever recorded supernova was captured by the U.S. Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera, which is mounted on the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab. A ring of glowing debris is all that remains of a white dwarf star that exploded more than 1,800 years ago when it was recorded by Chinese astronomers as a ‘guest star’. This special image, which covers an impressive 45 arcminutes on the sky, gives a rare view of the entirety of this supernova remnant. CTIO/NOIRLab/DOE/NSF/AURA T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF’s NOIRLab), J. Miller (Gemini Observatory/NSF’s NOIRLab), M. Zamani & D. de Martin (NSF’s NOIRLab)

This remnant was created by a supernova called SN 185, which happened 8,000 light-years away between the constellations of Circinus and Centaurus. For a long time, astronomers didn’t think that this supernova could have created such a large remnant in such a relatively short period of time, but in 2006 researchers showed that this remnant expanded at an unusually high speed. That’s how it was able to grow to its size of around 100 light-years across in under 2,000 years.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

There are two main types of supernova, those of a type called Type Ia, which is a thermonuclear explosion, and the other types are due to the collapse of a massive star. The SN 185 supernova was as a star hit a critical point of mass, it exploded and sent out high-velocity winds which quickly shaped the dust and gas around it into this remnant.

Topics

Tech News

Georgina Torbet

Space Writer

Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…

Space

Stunning nebula 15,000 light-years away imaged by VLT Survey Telescope

This spectacular picture of the Sh2-284 nebula has been captured in great detail by the VLT Survey Telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory. Sh2-284 is a star formation region, and at its centre there is a cluster of young stars, dubbed Dolidze 25. The radiation from this cluster is powerful enough to ionise the hydrogen gas in the nebula’s cloud. It is this ionisation that produces its bright orange and red colours.

A gorgeous new image of a distant nebula has been captured by the European Southern Observatory (ESO)'s VLT Survey Telescope. It shows part of the Sh2-284 nebula, a rarely imaged but stunning cloud of dust and gas located a massive 15,000 light-years away from Earth.

This nebula is a busy region of star formation, known as a stellar nursery, where young stars are born from swirls of dust and gas. As this matter moves around it forms into small clumps, which gradually grow and gather more material until they have enough gravity to attract material to them, becoming the seed of a new star. As these bright young stars are born they illuminate the dust and gas around them, creating the glowing nebula effect.

Space

This exoplanet is over 2,000-degrees Celsius, has vaporized metal in its atmosphere

This artist impression illustrates how astronomers using the Gemini North telescope, one half of the International Gemini Observatory operated by NSF’s NOIRLab, have made multiple detections of rock-forming elements in the atmosphere of a Jupiter-sized exoplanet, WASP-76b. The so-called “hot Jupiter” is perilously close to its host star, which is heating the planet’s atmosphere to astounding temperatures and vaporized rock-forming elements such as magnesium, calcium and iron, providing insight into how our own Solar System formed.

Astronomers have studied a strange, puffy, scorching-hot planet located 600 light-years away, and have seen elements that would normally form rocks, but are so hot that they have vaporized into the atmosphere.

The planet, named WASP-76b, is around the mass of Jupiter, but orbits its star 12 times closer than Mercury is to the sun. Being so close, its atmosphere its heated to a scorching 2,000- degrees Celsius, which makes it puff up to a large size that's six times the volume of Jupiter. These high temperatures also give astronomers the opportunity to observe elements that would normally be hard to identify in the atmosphere of a gas giant.

Space

James Webb captures stunning image of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A

Cassiopeia A (Cas A) is a supernova remnant located about 11,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia. It spans approximately 10 light-years. This new image uses data from Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) to reveal Cas A in a new light.

A stunning new image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows a famous supernova remnant called Cassiopeia A, or Cas A. When a massive star comes to the end of its life and explodes in a huge outpouring of light and energy called a supernova, it leaves behind a dense core that can become a black hole or a neutron star. But that's not all that remains after a supernova: the explosion can leave its mark on nearby clouds of dust and gas that are formed into intricate structures.

The image of Cas A was taken using Webb's MIRI instrument, which looks in the mid-infrared range. Located 11,000 light-years away, Cassiopeia A is one of the brightest objects in the sky in the radio wavelength, and is also visible in the optical, infrared, and X-ray wavelengths. To see the different features picked up in different wavelengths, you can look at the slider comparison of the Webb infrared image alongside a Hubble visible light image of the same object.