The wispy, glowing, magenta structures in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image are the remains of a star 10 to 15 times the mass of the Sun that we would have seen exploding as a supernova 3,000 years ago. The remnant's fast-moving gas is plowing into the surrounding gas of the galaxy, creating a supersonic shock wave in the surrounding medium and making the material glow.
The Hubble visible-light image reveals, deep within the remnant, a crescent-shaped cloud of pink emission from hydrogen gas and soft purple wisps that correspond to regions of glowing oxygen. A dense background of colorful stars is also visible.
Probing this tattered gaseous relic, the newly installed Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope detected pristine gas ejected by the doomed star that has not yet mixed with the gas in the interstellar medium. The supernova remnant, called N132D, resides in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small companion galaxy of the Milky Way located 170,000 light-years away. The resulting spectrum, taken in ultraviolet light, shows glowing oxygen and carbon in the remnant.
These results allow astronomers to better understand why some stars form an abundance of certain elements, like oxygen, but not others.
Ultraviolet light is blocked by the Earth's atmosphere, so the observation of N132D in the ultraviolet requires the use of the space-borne Hubble telescope. The broadest range of spectral signatures of the glowing gas appear in the ultraviolet, allowing astronomers to determine the quantities, or abundances, of key elements such as oxygen, as well as elements whose abundances cannot be traced from visible-light images, including carbon, magnesium, and silicon.
Previous ultraviolet instruments on Hubble were not sensitive enough to distinguish between the unmixed ejecta and the "shocked" gas of the surrounding interstellar medium.
Supernova remnants provide a rare opportunity to search for the material hidden deep inside a star. This in turn yields information on how stars evolve and how they manufacture chemicals in their interiors. Supernova explosions also enrich the interstellar medium with new chemical elements, which are incorporated into future generations of stars.
The COS observations were made on August 10, 2009. COS was installed by NASA astronauts in May 2009, during the servicing mission to upgrade and repair the 19-year-old Hubble telescope.
The visible-light image was taken on August 2, 2009, with Hubble's new Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). A filter that isolates emission from sulfur was combined with archival data from the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The ACS data include color filters that sample starlight in the blue, green, and red portions of the spectrum, as well as the pink emission from glowing hydrogen gas.
These Hubble observations of N132D are part of the Hubble Servicing Mission 4 Early Release Observations.
Credits
NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | LMC N132D, SNR J052501-693842 |
| Object Description | Supernova Remnant |
| R.A. Position | 05h 25m 1.4s |
| Dec. Position | -69° 38' 31.0" |
| Constellation | Dorado |
| Distance | 170,000 light-years (52,000 parsecs) |
| Dimensions | The image (inset) is 3 arcminutes (150 light-years or 46 parsecs) wide. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The Hubble images/spectrum were created from data from proposal : K. Noll (STScI) and J. Green, C. Froning, and K. France (University of Colorado, Boulder); and proposal : J. Green (University of Colorado, Boulder). Acknowledgments for N132D Observers: K. Noll (STScI) and J. Green, C. Froning, and K. France (University of Colorado, Boulder) Data Analysis: J. Anderson and M. Mutchler (STScI), and C. Froning and J. Green (University of Colorado, Boulder) Image Composition: Z. Levay and L. Frattare (STScI) Text: L. Frattare, D. Weaver, and R. Villard (STScI) Illustrations: A. Feild and Z. Levay (STScI) Video Animation: G. Bacon (STScI) Science Consultants: M. Livio (STScI) and C. Froning and J. Green (University of Colorado, Boulder) |
| Instrument | HST>COS/FUV and HST>COS/NUV (spectrum), and HST>ACS/WFC and HST>WFC3/UVIS (inset) |
| Exposure Dates | January 21-22, 2004 (ACS) and August 2, 2009 (WFC3), and August 10, 2009 (COS spectra) |
| Filters | ACS: F673N WFC3: F475W (g), F550M (y) F658N (H-alpha + [N II]), and F850LP (z) COS spectra: G130M (130nm) and G160M (160 nm) |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | The image (inset) is a composite of separate exposures made by the WFC3 and ACS instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope. Five filters were used to sample broad and narrow wavelength ranges. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic image. In this case, the assigned colors are: Pink: F850LP (z) Orange: F658N (H-alpha + [N II]) White: F673N ([S II]) Green: F550M (y) Blue: F475W (g) |
| Compass Image |  |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| 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 |
|
| 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. |
