Chandra & XMM-Newton Image: Detailed X-ray view of Puppis A supernova

The destructive results of a powerful supernova explosion reveal themselves in a delicate tapestry of X-ray light, as seen in this image from NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton.

Image credit: NASA /CXC /IAFE /G.Dubner et al & ESA /XMM-Newton

The image shows the remains of a supernova that would have been witnessed on Earth about 3,700 years ago.

The remnant is called Puppis A, and is around 7,000 light years away and about 10 light years across.

This image provides the most complete and detailed X-ray view of Puppis A ever obtained, made by combining a mosaic of different Chandra and XMM-Newton observations.

Low-energy X-rays are shown in red, medium-energy X-rays are in green and high energy X-rays are coloured blue.

These observations act as a probe of the gas surrounding Puppis A, known as the interstellar medium.

The complex appearance of the remnant shows that Puppis A is expanding into an interstellar medium that probably has a knotty structure.

ESA XMM-Newton

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.

A paper describing these results was published in the July 2013 issue of Astronomy and Astrophysics and is available online.

The first author is Gloria Dubner from the Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio in Buenos Aires in Argentina.

Puppis A: Supernova remnant seen in Two LIghts

Credit: NASA/ESA/JPL-Caltech/GSFC/IAFE

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 colours 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.

Eskimo Nebula NGC 2392: A beautiful end to a star's life

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/IAA-CSIC/N.Ruiz et al, Optical: NASA/STScI

Stars like the Sun can become remarkably photogenic at the end of their life.

A good example is NGC 2392, which is located about 4,200 light years from Earth.

NGC 2392, (nicknamed the "Eskimo Nebula") is what astronomers call a planetary nebula.

This designation, however, is deceiving because planetary nebulas actually have nothing to do with planets.

The term is simply a historic relic since these objects looked like planetary disks to astronomers in earlier times looking through small optical telescopes.

Instead, planetary nebulas form when a star uses up all of the hydrogen in its core—an event our Sun will go through in about five billion years.

When this happens, the star begins to cool and expand, increasing its radius by tens to hundreds of times its original size.

Eventually, the outer layers of the star are carried away by a 50,000 kilometer per hour wind, leaving behind a hot core.

This hot core has a surface temperature of about 50,000 degrees Celsius, and is ejecting its outer layers in a much faster wind traveling six million kilometers per hour.

The radiation from the hot star and the interaction of its fast wind with the slower wind creates the complex and filamentary shell of a planetary nebula. Eventually the remnant star will collapse to form a white dwarf star.

Now days, astronomers using space-based telescopes are able to observe planetary nebulas such as NGC 2392 in ways their scientific ancestors probably could never imagine.

This composite image of NGC 2392 contains X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in purple showing the location of million-degree gas near the center of the planetary nebula.

Data from the Hubble Space Telescope show—coloured red, green, and blue—the intricate pattern of the outer layers of the star that have been ejected.

The comet-shaped filaments form when the faster wind and radiation from the central star interact with cooler shells of dust and gas that were already ejected by the star.

The observations of NGC 2392 were part of a study of three planetary nebulas with hot gas in their center.

The Chandra data show that NGC 2392 has unusually high levels of X-ray emission compared to the other two.

This leads researchers to deduce that there is an unseen companion to the hot central star in NGC 2392.

The interaction between a pair of binary stars could explain the elevated X-ray emission found there.

Meanwhile, the fainter X-ray emission observed in the two other planetary nebulas in the sample—IC 418 and NGC 6826—is likely produced by shock fronts (like sonic booms) in the wind from the central star.

A composite image of NGC 6826 was included in a gallery of planetary nebulas released in 2012.

A paper describing these results is available online and was published in the April 10th, 2013 issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

Hubble Image: Super-freezer Supernova 1987A is a dust factory

Hubble Space Telescope image of supernova 1987A 

Credit: ESA, NASA, P. Challis and R. Kirshner

The keyhole-like shape at the centre is the remnant of the supernova explosion 1987A. 

This remnant is still expanding with a speed of 2200 km per second. 

It is believed that the surrounding ring was formed before the explosion.

Surprisingly low temperatures detected in the remnant of the supernova 1987A may explain the mystery of why space is so abundant with dust grains and molecules.

The results will be presented by Dr Mikako Matsuura at the National Astronomy Meeting 2013 in St Andrews on Friday 5 July.

In 1987, an explosion of a massive star was detected in our neighbouring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, just 170,000 light years away.

This supernova, dubbed 1987A, released approximately thousand million times more energy than that emitted by the Sun in one year.

Twenty five years later, an international team of astronomers has used the Herschel Space Observatory and Atacama Millimeter and Submillimeter Array (ALMA) to study the supernova remnant.

They found a vast reservoir of unexpectedly cold molecules and dust.

"The powerful explosion we saw in 1987 scattered elements made by star into space in the form of a very hot plasma. The gas has now cooled down to temperatures between -250 to -170 degrees Celsius.

That's surprisingly cold, comparable to the icy surface of Pluto at the edge of our Solar System. The gas has formed molecules and some has even condensed into solid grains of dust. The supernova has now become a super freezer!" said Dr Matsuura.

The Herschel observations show that the supernova produced dust and solid material equal to about 250 000 times the mass of the Earth, or three quarters of the mass of the Sun.

To date, scientists have believed that supernova remnants contain only very energetic atomic gas, detectable at optical X-ray wavelengths; the new observations show that this is not the case.

The discovery of such a large mass of dust should help us to understand how supernovae slowly spread and fill galaxies with gas, dust and small rocky particles, some of which may eventually end up in the next generation of stars and planets.

"We were surprised by the amount of dust and molecular gas in the reservoir created by the supernova 1987A. The ALMA and Herschel observations show that the reservoir contains carbon monoxide molecules equalling one tenth of the mass of the Sun. Herschel shows that the dust mass was even larger - about half the solar mass!" said Dr Matsuura.

Pencil Nebula Glows on Deep-Space Canvas

Martin Pugh took this image of the Pencil Nebula, or NGC 2736, from his home in Yass, New South Wales, Australia over the course of two weeks in March, 2013.

Pugh used a Takahashi FSQ106N telescope with a Paramount ME Software Bisque mount, SBIG STF8300/FW8300-8 Baader 36mm filters, and Maxim DL as well as CCDAutopilot software to capture the photo. 

He processed the image with Maxim DL/CCD, Photoshop CS, CCDStack and PixInsight. The total exposure time was 10 hours.

CREDIT: Martin Pugh

The thin, woven filaments in this beautiful image resemble an artist’s etching into a canvas of glowing gas.

Martin Pugh took this image of the Pencil Nebula, or NGC 2736, from his home in Yass, New South Wales, Australia over the course of two weeks in March,2013.

The Pencil Nebula is located 800 light-years away and is five light-years long. The nebula, named for its elongated appearance, is an interstellar shockwave seen nearly edge-on.

The shockwave travels through space at an astonishing 310,685 mph (500,000 km/h).

Scientists say the nebula is part of the larger Vela supernova remnant that produced the initial shockwave. In the image, the red and blue regions mark the glow from hydrogen and oxygen atoms.

ESA ESO La Silla Observatory: Captures Pencil Nebula (NGC 2736) Image

The oddly shaped Pencil Nebula (NGC 2736) is pictured in this image from ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile.

This nebula is a small part of a huge remnant left over after a supernova explosion that took place about 11.000 years ago.

Picture: EPA/European Southern Observatory

NASA - Hubble Solves Mystery on Source of Supernova in Nearby Galaxy

This image of Type Ia Supernova Remnant 0509-67.5 was made by combining data from two of NASA’s Great Observatories. 

The result shows soft green and blue hues of heated material from the X-ray data surrounded by the glowing pink optical shell, which shows the ambient gas being shocked by the expanding blast wave from the supernova.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and B. Schaefer and A. Pagnotta (Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge); Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CXC, SAO, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), J. Hughes (Rutgers University)

Based on previous observations from ground-based telescopes, astronomers knew the supernova class, called a Type Ia, created a remnant named SNR 0509-67.5, which lies 170,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy.

Theoretically, this kind of supernova explosion is caused by a star spilling material onto a white dwarf companion, the compact remnant of a normal star, until it sets off one of the most powerful explosions in the universe.

Astronomers failed to find any remnant of the companion star, however, and concluded that the common scenario did not apply in this case, although it is still a viable theory for other Type Ia supernovae.

"We know Hubble has the sensitivity necessary to detect the faintest white dwarf remnants that could have caused such explosions," said lead investigator Bradley Schaefer of Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge.

"The logic here is the same as the famous quote from Sherlock Holmes: 'when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'"

The cause of SNR 0509-67.5 can be explained best by two tightly orbiting white dwarf stars spiraling closer and closer until they collided and exploded.

For four decades, the search for Type Ia supernovae progenitors has been a key question in astrophysics.

The problem has taken on special importance during the last decade with Type Ia supernovae being the premier tools for measuring the accelerating universe.

Type Ia supernovae release tremendous energy, in which the light produced is often brighter than an entire galaxy of stars.

The problem has been to identify the type of star system that pushes the white dwarf's mass over the edge and triggers this type of explosion.

Many possibilities have been suggested, but most require that a companion star near the exploding white dwarf be left behind after the explosion.

Therefore, a possible way to distinguish between the various progenitor models has been to look deep in the center of an old supernova remnant to search for the ex-companion star.

In 2010, Schaefer and Ashley Pagnotta of LSU were preparing a proposal to look for any faint ex-companion stars in the center of four supernova remnants in the Large Magellanic Cloud when they discovered the Hubble Space Telescope already had taken the desired image of one of their target remnants, SNR 0509-67.5, for the Hubble Heritage program, which collects images of especially photogenic astronomical targets.

In analyzing the central region, they found it to be completely empty of stars down to the limit of the faintest objects Hubble can detect in the photos. Schaefer suggests the best explanation left is the so-called "double degenerate model" in which two white dwarfs collide.

The results are being reported today at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, Texas. A paper on the results will be published in the Jan. 12 issue of the journal Nature.

There are no recorded observations of the star exploding. However, researchers at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md. have identified light from the supernova that was reflected off of interstellar dust, delaying its arrival at Earth by 400 years.

This delay, called a light echo of the supernova explosion also allowed the astronomers to measure the spectral signature of the light from the explosion. By virtue of the colour signature, astronomers were able to deduce it was a Type Ia supernova.

Because the remnant appears as a nice symmetric shell or bubble, the geometric center can be determined accurately.

These properties make SNR 0509-67.5 an ideal target to search for ex-companions. The young age also means that any surviving stars have not moved far from the site of the explosion.

The team plans to look at other supernova remnants in the Large Magellenic Cloud to further test their observations.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center manages the telescope.

The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington, D.C.

NASA WISE Puppis A: Supernova Star Explosion Leaves Behind a Rose

Some of the green-coloured gas and dust in the image is from yet another ancient supernova - the Vela supernova remnant.

That explosion happened around 12,000 years ago and was four times closer to us than Puppis A.

The colours in this image represent different wavelengths of infrared light that humans can't see with their eyes.

If you had X-ray vision like the comic book hero Superman, both of these remnants would be among the largest and brightest objects you would see in the sky.

About 3,700 years ago, people on Earth would have seen a brand-new bright star in the sky. It slowly dimmed out of sight and was eventually forgotten, until modern astronomers later found its remains, called Puppis A.

In this new image from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), Puppis A looks less like the remains of a supernova explosion and more like a red rose.

Puppis A (pronounced PUP-pis) was formed when a massive star ended its life in a supernova, the most brilliant and powerful form of an explosion in the known universe.

The expanding shock waves from that explosion are heating up the dust and gas clouds surrounding the supernova, causing them to glow and appear red in this infrared view.

While much of the material from that original star was violently thrown out into space, some of it remained in an incredibly dense object called a neutron star.

This particular neutron star (too faint to be seen in this image) is moving inexplicably fast: over 3 million miles per hour! Astronomers are perplexed over its absurd speed, and have nicknamed the object the "Cosmic Cannonball."

Chandra and ROSAT Image: Middle-Aged Supernova Remnant

G299.2-2.9 is an intriguing supernova remnant found about 16,000 light years away in the Milky Way galaxy.

Evidence points to G299.2-2.9 being the remains of a Type Ia supernova, where a white dwarf has grown sufficiently massive to cause a thermonuclear explosion.

Because it is older than most supernova remnants caused by these explosions, at an age of about 4,500 years, G299.2-2.9 provides astronomers with an excellent opportunity to study how these objects evolve over time.

It also provides a probe of the Type Ia supernova explosion that produced this structure.

This composite image shows G299.2-2.9 in X-ray light from Chandra and the ROSAT satellite, in orange, that has been overlaid on an infrared image from the Two Micron All-Sky Survey, or 2MASS.

The faint X-ray emission from the inner region reveals relatively large amounts of iron and silicon, as expected for a remnant of a Type Ia supernova.

The outer shell of the remnant is complex, with at least a double shell structure. Typically, such a complex outer shell is associated with a star that has exploded into space where gas and dust are not uniformly distributed.

Since most theories to explain Type Ia supernovas assume they go off in a uniform environment, detailed studies of this complicated outer shell should help astronomers improve their understanding of the environments where these explosions occur.

It is very important to understand the details of Type Ia explosions because astronomers use them as cosmic mile markers to measure the accelerated expansion of the universe and study dark energy.

The discovery of this accelerated expansion in the late 1990s led to the recent award of the Nobel Prize in Physics.

NASA Chandra X-ray telescope: New Supernova Remnant Lights Up

Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers are witnessing the unprecedented transition of a supernova to a supernova remnant, where light from an exploding star in a neighboring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, reached Earth in February 1987.

Named Supernova 1987A, it was the closest supernova explosion witnessed in almost 400 years.

The supernova's close proximity to Earth allows astronomers to study it in detail as it evolves.

Now, the supernova debris, which has faded over the years, is brightening. This means that a different power source has begun to light the debris.

The debris of SN 1987A is beginning to impact the surrounding ring, creating powerful shock waves that generate X-rays observed with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Those X-rays are illuminating the supernova debris and shock heating is making it glow in visible light. Since its launch in 1990, the Hubble telescope has provided a continuous record of the changes in SN 1987A.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and P. Challis (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)

NASA WISE: Tycho’s Supernova Remnant

This image from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) takes in several interesting objects in the constellation Cassiopeia, none of which are easily seen in visible light.

The red circle visible in the upper left part of the image is SN 1572, often called “Tycho’s Supernova”.

This remnant of a star explosion is named after the astronomer Tycho Brahe, although he was not the only person to observe and record the supernova.

When the supernova first appeared in November 1572, it was as bright as Venus and could be seen in the daytime.

Over the next two years, the supernova dimmed until it could no longer be seen with the naked eye. It wasn’t until the 1950s that the remnants of the supernova could be seen again with the help of telescopes.

When the star exploded, it sent out a blast wave into the surrounding material, scooping up interstellar dust and gas as it went, like a snow plow.

An expanding shock wave traveled into the surroundings and a reverse shock was driven back into toward the remnants of the star. Previous observations by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope indicate that the nature of the light that WISE sees from the supernova remnant is emission from dust heated by the shock wave.

In the center of the image is a star forming nebula of dust and gas, called S175 (in the Sharpless catalog of ionized nebula). This cloud of material is about 3,500 light years away and 35 light-years across. It is being heated by radiation from young hot stars within it, and the dust within the cloud radiates infrared light.

On the left edge of the image, between the Tycho supernova remnant and the very bright star, is an open cluster of stars, King 1, first catalogued by Ivan King, an astronomer at UC Berkeley. This cluster is about 6,000 light-years away, 4 light-years across and is about 2 billion years old.

Also of interest in the lower right of the image is a cluster of very red sources. Almost all of these sources have no counterparts in visible light images, and only some have been catalogued by previous infrared surveys.

There are indications that they may be young stellar objects associated with a dense nebula in the area. Young stellar objects (YSOs) are stars in their earliest stages of life. YSOs are surrounded by an envelope of dust, which would explain the very red color of the sources in this image.

All four infrared detectors aboard WISE were used to make this mosaic. The image spans an area of 1.6 x 1.6 degrees on the sky or about 3 times as wide and high as the full Moon.

Colour is representational: blue and cyan represent infrared light at wavelengths of 3.4 and 4.6 microns, which is dominated by light from stars. Green and red represent light at 12 and 22 microns, which is mostly light from warm dust.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/WISE Team