Hubble Observes Supernova Trace Shock Wave

The most prominent feature in the image is a ring with dozens of bright spots. A shock wave of material unleashed by the stellar blast is slamming into regions along the ring's inner regions, heating them up, and causing them to glow. The ring, about a light-year across, was probably shed by the star about 20,000 years before it exploded.



An international team of astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope reports a significant brightening of the emissions from Supernova 1987A. The result [...]

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