The James Webb Telescope captured never-before-seen images of supernova SN 1987A, the star that exploded in 1987 and is one of the best-studied objects in space.
The details revealed last week provide crucial clues to our understanding of supernova formation.
Star SN 1987A is 168,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, the Milky Way’s satellite dwarf galaxy. It has been the subject of intensive observations at wavelengths ranging from gamma rays to radio for almost 40 years.
James Webb telescope image of supernova SN 1987A.
What is the image of the supernova that Webb took like?
In the picture you can see a central structure like the hole of a keyhole. Around it, a series of bright rings represent a “string of pearls” made up of ribbons of gas and dust spewed out by the star in its various stages of extinction.
These materials, illuminated by the expanding shock waves sent out at the last moment, collapse and detonate.
“Formed from material ejected tens of thousands of years before the supernova explosion, the equatorial ring contains bright hotspots that formed when the supernova shockwave struck the ring,” NASA said.
While these structures were observed to varying degrees by NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes and the Chandra X-ray Observatory, Webb’s unmatched sensitivity and spatial resolution revealed a new feature in this supernova remnant: small shaped structures. crescent
These crescents are thought to be part of the outer layers of gas erupted in the supernova explosion. Its brightness may be an indication of limb light, an optical phenomenon resulting from viewing the expanding material in three dimensions.
In other words, our vantage point gives the impression that there is more material in these two crescents than is actually there.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the largest and most powerful in the world and has visualized faint and extremely distant galaxies.
The $10 billion Webb is considered the successor to the very successful but aging Hubble Space Telescope.
