CREDIT: NASA, ESA, A. Crotts, J. Sokoloski, and H. Uthas (Columbia University), and S. Lawrence (Hofstra University)
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has given astronomers a rare look at an enormous stellar eruption, allowing them to map out the aftermath of such blasts in unprecedented detail.
Hubble photographed an April 2011 explosion in the double-star system T Pyxidis (T Pyx for short), which goes off every 12 to 50 years.
The new images reveal that material ejected by previous T Pyx outbursts did not escape into space, instead sticking around to form a debris disk about 1 light-year wide around the system.
This information came as a surprise to the research team.
"We fully expected this to be a spherical shell," study co-author Arlin Crotts of Columbia University said in a statement.
"This observation shows it is a disk, and it is populated with fast-moving ejecta from previous outbursts."
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