October 6, 2014 - Kepler's Supernova

Kepler’s Supernova A new star appeared in the night sky 410 years ago this week, a star that was visible during the day and dimmed over several weeks. Witnesses to this supernova explosion included the famous astronomer Johannes Kepler, who observed and documented the object for a year and wrote a book about the new star. Today, the debris from this exploded star in the constellation Ophiuchus is known as the Kepler supernova remnant. In this image, the result of eight days of observations with the orbiting Chandra X-ray telescope, colors represent a range of increasing energies: red (low), yellow, green, blue, and purple (high). The newly-revealed asymmetrical shape of the expanding debris leads scientists to believe it is farther away than previously thought, perhaps 13,000 to 23,000 light-years.

Image credit: X-ray: NASA / CXC / SAO / D.Patnaude; Optical: DSS

Weekly Calendar

October 6-12, 2014

Holidays - Sky Events - Space History

Monday 6

Moon at perigee

1990: STS-41 Discovery launched
1992: NASA and RASA sign Human Spaceflight Agreement to share astronauts and cosmonauts
2008: MESSENGER spacecraft makes its second flyby of Mercury

Tuesday 7

Uranus at opposition

1885: Niels Bohr born
1959: Luna 3 returns first images of the lunar far side
2002: STS-112 Atlantis launched
2010: Soyuz TMA-01M launched carrying ISS Expedition 25/26 crew