This striking NASA Hubble Space Telescope picture shows three rings of glowing gas encircling the site of Supernova 1987A, a star which exploded in February 1987. Though all of the rings appear inclined to our view (so that they appear to intersect) they are probably in three different planes. The small bright ring lies in a plane containing the supernova, the two larger rings lie in front and behind it. The rings are a surprise because astronomers expected to see, instead, an hourglass shaped bubble of gas being blown into space by the supernova's progenitor star (based on previous HST observations, and images at lower resolution taken at ground-based observatories). One possibility is that the two rings might be "painted" on the invisible hourglass by a high-energy beam of radiation that is sweeping across the gas, like a searchlight sweeping across clouds. The source of the radiation might be a previously unknown stellar remnant that is a binary companion to the star that exploded in 1987. The supernova is 169,000 light years away, and lies in the dwarf galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud, which can be seen from the southern hemisphere. The image was taken in visible light (hyrdrogen-alpha emission), with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, in February 1994.
Credits
Credit: Dr. Christopher Burrows, ESA/STScI and NASA| About The Object | |
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| Object Name | SN 1987A |
| About The Object | |
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| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
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| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
