February 24, 2020 - Three Eyes on a Supernova

Three Eyes on a Supernova  E0102-72 is the remnant of a star that exploded in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a nearby galaxy 190,000 light-years away. The star’s explosion produced two shock waves—one traveling out, and the other rebounding into the material ejected by the explosion. In this composite image, radio waves (red), which are due to high energy electrons spiraling around magnetic field lines in the gas, trace the outbound shock wave. The Chandra X-ray image (blue) shows oxygen- and neon-rich gas, created by nuclear reactions inside the star, hurled into space by the supernova, and then heated to millions of degrees Celsius by the rebounding shock wave. The Hubble Space Telescope optical image (green) shows dense clumps of oxygen gas that have “cooled” to about 30,000° Celsius.

Image credit: X-ray (NASA/CXC/SAO); optical (NASA/HST); radio: (ACTA)

Weekly Calendar

February 24 - March 1, 2019

Holidays - Sky Events - Space History

 

Monday 24

1968: Discovery of first pulsar announced
1969: Mariner 6 launched
2007: Rosetta spacecraft flies by Mars
2011: STS-133 Discovery launched

Tuesday 25

Mercury in inferior conjunction

Wednesday 26

Moon at apogee

1842: Camille Flammarion born
1966: First Saturn 1B rocket launched

Thursday 27

Venus 6° north of Moon

1897: Bernard Lyot born
1970: HL-10 sets lifting body altitude record of 90,300 feet

Friday 28

Uranus 4° north of Moon

1959: Discoverer 1 launched
1966: Gemini IX primary crew, Bassett & See, killed in plane crash
1990: STS-36 Atlantis launched
2007: New Horizons spacecraft flies past Jupiter en route to Pluto

Saturday 29

1936: Astronaut Jack Lousma born

Sunday 1

Vesta 0.1° north of Moon

1927: George Abell born
1966: Venera 3 impacts on Venus
1982: Venera 13 returns first color photos from the surface of Venus
2002: STS-109 Columbia launched
2016: ISS crew completes one-year mission