This time-lapse video sequence of Hubble Space Telescope images reveals dramatic changes in a ring of material around the exploded star Supernova 1987A.
The images, taken from 1994 to 2016, show the effects of a shock wave from the supernova blast smashing into the ring. The ring begins to brighten as the shock wave hits it. The ring is about one light-year across.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and R. Kirshner (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation), and P. Challis (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
by Busy_Yesterday9455
7 Comments
Lovely sight
There’s a person in there! That’s wild that it happened to look like that.
*Approximately 167,000 years ago today.
Noob question: Google was a bit unclear, how long could you see it with the naked eye for?
Can someone explain to me why in the beginning it was just a circle but during the explosion the “core” disappeared and the explosion took the form of a ring ?
I like seeing the timelapse
The Astronomer who discovered it was listening to Pink Floyd’s The Wall at the time.