Supernova Seen In Two Lights
The destructive results of a mighty supernova explosion reveal themselves in
a delicate blend of infrared and X-ray light, as seen in this image from NASA’s
Spitzer Space Telescope and Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and the European Space
Agency's XMM-Newton.
The bubbly cloud is an irregular shock wave, generated by a supernova that
would have been witnessed on Earth 3,700 years ago. The remnant itself, called
Puppis A, is around 7,000 light-years away, and the shock wave is about 10
light-years across.
The pastel hues in this image reveal that the infrared and X-ray structures
trace each other closely. Warm dust particles are responsible for most of the
infrared light wavelengths, assigned red and green colors in this view. Material
heated by the supernova’s shock wave emits X-rays, which are colored blue.
Regions where the infrared and X-ray emissions blend together take on brighter,
more pastel tones.
The shock wave appears to light up as it slams into surrounding clouds of
dust and gas that fill the interstellar space in this region.
From the infrared glow, astronomers have found a total quantity of dust in
the region equal to about a quarter of the mass of our sun. Data collected from
Spitzer’s infrared spectrograph reveal how the shock wave is breaking apart the
fragile dust grains that fill the surrounding space.
Supernova explosions forge the heavy elements that can provide the raw
material from which future generations of stars and planets will form. Studying
how supernova remnants expand into the galaxy and interact with other material
provides critical clues into our own origins.
Infrared data from Spitzer’s multiband imaging photometer (MIPS) at
wavelengths of 24 and 70 microns are rendered in green and red. X-ray data from
XMM-Newton spanning an energy range of 0.3 to 8 kiloelectron volts are shown in
blue.
Credit:
NASA/ESA/JPL-Caltech/GSFC/IAFE
NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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