Credit & Copyright: CTIO/NOIRLab/DOE/NSF/AURA,
T.A. Rector (Univ.of Alaska/NSFBs NOIRLab),
J. Miller (Gemini Obs./NSFBs NOIRLab), M. Zamani & D. de Martin (NSFBs NOIRLab)
Explanation:
In 185 AD,
Chinese astronomers
recorded the appearance of a new star in the Nanmen asterism.
That part of the sky is
identified with Alpha and Beta Centauri on modern star charts.
The new star was visible to the naked-eye for months,
and is now thought to be the earliest
recorded supernova.
This deep telescopic view
reveals the wispy outlines of emission nebula RCW 86, just visible against
the starry background,
understood to be the remnant
of that stellar explosion.
Captured by the wide-field
Dark
Energy Camera operating at Cerro
Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile,
the image traces the full extent of a ragged shell of gas ionized by the still
expanding shock wave.
Space-based images
indicate an abundance of the element iron in RCW 86 and
the absence of a neutron star or pulsar
within the remnant,
suggesting that the original supernova was Type Ia.
Unlike the core collapse
supernova explosion of a massive star, a
Type Ia supernova
is a thermonuclear
detonation on a white dwarf
star that accretes material from a companion in a binary star system.
Near the plane of our
Milky Way
galaxy and larger than the full moon on the sky this supernova remnant
is too faint to be seen by eye though.
RCW 86 is some 8,000 light-years distant and around 100 light-years across.
J. Miller (Gemini Obs./NSFBs NOIRLab), M. Zamani & D. de Martin (NSFBs NOIRLab)
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Publikacii s klyuchevymi slovami:
supernova remnant - ostatok Sverhnovoi
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