Extraterrestrial fireworks

Esahubble_opo0635a_1024

esahubble_opo0635a July 31st, 2006

Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

In the wake of Independence Day festivities surrounding the U.S. July 4th holiday, astronomers and image processors at the Space Telescope Science Institute are releasing the Hubble Space Telescope image of a cosmic explosion that is quite similar to fireworks on Earth. In the nearby galaxy, the Small Magellanic Cloud, a massive star has exploded as a supernova, and begun to dissipate its interior into a spectacular display of colorful filaments. The supernova remnant (SNR), known as "E0102" for short, is the greenish-blue shell of debris just below the center of the Hubble image. Its name is derived from its cataloged placement (or coordinates) in the celestial sphere. More formally known as 1E0102.2-7219, it is located almost 50 light-years (15 parsecs) away from of the edge of the massive star-forming region, N 76, also known as Henize 1956 in the Small Magellanic Cloud. This delicate structure glowing a multitude of lavenders and peach hues, resides in the upper right of the image. The composition and thus, the coloring, of the diffuse remnant in comparison to its star-forming neighbor is due to the presence of very large quantities of oxygen compared to hydrogen. E0102 is a member of the oxygen-rich class of SNRs showing strong oxygen and other more metal-like abundances in its optical and X-ray spectra, and an absence of hydrogen and helium. N 76 in contrast is made up primarily of glowing hydrogen emission. One explanation for the abundance of oxygen in the SNR is that the parent star was very large and old, and had blown away most its hydrogen as stellar wind before it exploded. It is surmised that the progenitor star that caused the supernova explosion may have been a Wolf-Rayet. These stars, which can be upward of 20 times the mass of the sun and tens of thousands times more luminous, are famous for having a strong stellar wind throughout their lifetime. This stellar wind carried off material from the outer-most shells of the star (the hydrogen and helium shells), leaving the next most abundant element, oxygen, as a visible signature after the star exploded as a supernova. Determined to be only about 2000 years old, E0102 is relatively young on astronomical scales and is just beginning its interactions with the nearby interstellar medium. Young supernova remnants like E0102 allow astronomers to examine material from the cores of massive stars directly. This in turn gives insight on how stars form, their composition, and the chemical enrichment of the surrounding area. As well, young remnants are a great learning tool to better understand the physics of supernova explosions. E0102 was observed in 2003 with the Hubble Advanced Camera for Surveys. Four filters that isolate light from blue, visible, and infrared wavelengths and hydrogen emission were combined with oxygen emission images of the SNR taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 in 1995. The Small Magellanic Cloud is a nearby dwarf galaxy to our own Milky Way. It is visible in the Southern Hemisphere, in the direction of the constellation Tucana, and lies roughly 210,000 light-years (65 000 parsecs) distant.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo0635a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, None, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
1E 0102.2-7219 E0102
Subject - Local Universe
Nebula > Type > Supernova Remnant
Esahubble_opo0635a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 1h 3m 55.7s
DEC = -72° 2’ 6.7”
Orientation
North is 85.8° CCW
Field of View
3.0 x 2.4 arcminutes
Constellation
Tucana

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Cyan Hubble (WFPC2) Optical (Oiii) 502.0 nm
Red Hubble (ACS) Optical (I) 814.0 nm
Orange Hubble (ACS) Optical (H-alpha) 658.0 nm
Green Hubble (ACS) Optical (V) 550.0 nm
Blue Hubble (ACS) Optical (B) 435.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Cyan
Red
Orange
Green
Blue
Esahubble_opo0635a_1280
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ID
opo0635a
Subject Category
C.4.1.4  
Subject Name
1E 0102.2-7219, E0102
Credits
NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Release Date
2006-07-31T15:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo0635a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Distance to SMC in light years
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
WFPC2, ACS, ACS, ACS, ACS
Color Assignment
Cyan, Red, Orange, Green, Blue
Band
Optical, Optical, Optical, Optical, Optical
Bandpass
Oiii, I, H-alpha, V, B
Central Wavelength
502, 814, 658, 550, 435
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
None, None, None, None, None
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
15.9820641205, -72.0351947883
Reference Dimension
3609.0, 2891.0
Reference Pixel
1804.5, 1445.5
Scale
-1.38931789857e-05, 1.38931789857e-05
Rotation
85.79999999999977
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
ESA/Hubble
URL
http://www.spacetelescope.org/
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
City
Garching bei München
State/Province
None
Postal Code
D-85748
Country
Germany
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
ESA/Hubble
Publisher ID
esahubble
Resource ID
opo0635a
Metadata Date
2006-07-07T15:51:53-04:00
Metadata Version
1.1
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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