HST has resolved, to an unprecedented detail of 0.1 arcsecond, a mysterious elliptical ring of material around the remnants of Supernova 1987A.
In this image, taken with the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera on August 23, 1990, the ring appears as a yellow ellipse. The tightly knotted debris from the stellar explosion appears as a red blob near the center of the ring. The blue stars to the left and right of the ring are not associated with the supernova.
This raw image, not computer reconstructed, was made in the yellow light of doubly ionized oxygen (5007 angstroms). The blue and red color was added to reflect the object's true color.
The ring, located 160,000 light-years from Earth is destined to be a relatively short-lived structure. Expanding debris from the supernova will overtake and disintegrate the ring within a century.
Credits
Credit: NASA, ESA, and STScI| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | SN1987a |
| R.A. Position | 05h 35m 28.25s |
| Dec. Position | -69° 16' 13.0" |
| 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. |
