Above and Beyond: Supernova Remnant 0509

 

 

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach.

 

All images, illustrations, and videos courtesy of NASA, ESA, and STScI except:

 

·       Night sky imagery created with Stellarium

·       Images of supernova in the Pinwheel Galaxy (SN 2011fe) courtesy of Peter Nugent and the Palomar Transient Factory, Thunderf00t (Wikipedia), and BJ Fulton/LCOGT

·       Type Ia supernova animation courtesy of ESO/M. Kornmesser

·       Taurus constellation drawing from Firmamentum Sobiescianum sive Uranographia by Johannes Hevelius, courtesy of the United States Naval Observatory

·       Black-and-white Crab Nebula image: Bill Schoening/NOAO/AURA/NSF

·       Drawing of the Crab Nebula by William Parsons, the Third Earl of Rosse

 

 

Written by Vanessa Thomas

Designed by John Godfrey

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 A transparent ball of red gas floats in space among a backdrop of stars. 

Text, SNR 0509. SUPERNOVA REMNANT. This delicate celestial bubble is the result of a violent stellar explosion that took place in a nearby galaxy. 

The gaseous shell is 23 light-years across and is expanding at more than 11 million miles per hour. 

The supernova that produced this glowing shell of gas might have been triggered by the collision of two stellar relics called white dwarfs.