Hubble sees gas shell around Nova Cygni 1992

Esahubble_opo9321a_1024

esahubble_opo9321a September 30th, 1993

Credit: Francesco Parasce, ESA/STScI and NASA

A NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope (HS1) image of a tepidly ballooning bubble of gas blasted off a star. The shell surrounds Nova Cygni 1992 which erupted on February 19, 1992. The shell is so young it still contains a record of the initial conditions of the explosion. The HST image was taken in ultraviolet light with the European Space Agency's Faint Object Camera (FOC) on May 31, 1993, 467 days after the explosion. The FOC reveals a remarkably circular yet slightly lumpy ring-like structure. The ring is the edge of the bubble's shell of hot gas. The shell is only 37 billion miles (about 60 billion kilometres) across, or 400 times the diameter of the solar system. A beam of light could cross the shell in less than 2-1/2 days.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9321a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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Image Details Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
Nova Cygni 1992
Subject - Milky Way
Star > Type > Variable > Nova

Color Mapping Details Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red Hubble (FOC) Ultraviolet (Mid-UV) -
Esahubble_opo9321a_1280
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ID
opo9321a
Subject Category
B.3.2.1.5  
Subject Name
Nova Cygni 1992
Credits
Francesco Parasce, ESA/STScI and NASA
Release Date
1993-09-30T05:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9321a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Distance in light years from: iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/631/2/1094/19488.text.html
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
FOC
Color Assignment
Red
Band
Ultraviolet
Bandpass
Mid-UV
Central Wavelength
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
Equinox
Reference Value
Reference Dimension
2252.0, 2016.0
Reference Pixel
Scale
Rotation
Coordinate System Projection:
Quality
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
Postal Code
D-85748
Country
Germany
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
ESA/Hubble
Publisher ID
esahubble
Resource ID
opo9321a
Resource URL
http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/original/opo9321a.tif
Related Resources
Metadata Date
2003-12-09T17:39:53+01:00
Metadata Version
1.1
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