Probing the tattered remains of the supernova remnant N132D

Esahubble_heic0910j_1024

esahubble_heic0910j September 9th, 2009

Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team

The wispy, glowing, magenta structures in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image are the remains of a star 10 to 15 times the mass of the Sun, which we would have seen exploding as a supernova 3000 years ago. The remnant's fast-moving gas is ploughing into the surrounding gas of the galaxy, creating a supersonic shock wave in the surrounding medium and making the material glow. The Hubble visible-light image reveals, deep within the remnant, a crescent-shaped cloud of pink emission from hydrogen gas and soft purple wisps that correspond to regions of glowing oxygen. A dense background of colourful stars is also visible. Probing this tattered gaseous relic, the newly installed Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope detected pristine gas ejected by the doomed star that has not yet mixed with the gas in the interstellar medium. The supernova remnant, called N132D, resides in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small companion galaxy of the Milky Way located 170 000 light-years away. The resulting spectrum, taken in ultraviolet light, shows glowing oxygen and carbon in the remnant. These results allow astronomers to better understand why some stars form an abundance of certain elements, like oxygen, but not others. Ultraviolet light is blocked by Earth's atmosphere, so the observation of N132D in the ultraviolet requires the use of the space-borne Hubble. The broadest range of spectral signatures of the glowing gas appear in the ultraviolet, allowing astronomers to determine the quantities, or abundances, of key elements such as oxygen, as well as elements whose abundances cannot be traced from visible-light images, including carbon, magnesium and silicon. Previous ultraviolet instruments on Hubble were not sensitive enough to distinguish between the unmixed ejecta, fresh from the supernova, and the "shocked" gas of the surrounding interstellar medium. Supernova remnants provide a rare opportunity to search for the material hidden deep inside a star. This in turn yields information on how stars evolve and how they manufacture chemicals in their interiors. Supernova explosions also enrich the interstellar medium with new chemical elements, which are incorporated into future generations of stars. The COS observations were made on 10 August 2009. COS was installed by NASA astronauts in May 2009, during the Servicing Mission to upgrade and repair the 19-year-old Hubble. The visible-light image was taken on 2 August 2009 with Hubble's new Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). A filter that isolates emission from sulphur was combined with archival data from the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The ACS data include colour filters that sample starlight in the blue, green and red portions of the spectrum, as well as the pink emission from glowing hydrogen gas. These Hubble observations of the N132D are part of the Hubble Servicing Mission 4 Early Release Observations.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0910j/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
CAL 35 LHA 120-N 132D
Subject - Local Universe
Nebula > Type > Supernova Remnant
Esahubble_heic0910j_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 5h 25m 2.0s
DEC = -69° 38’ 31.6”
Orientation
North is 137.8° CW
Field of View
3.0 x 2.6 arcminutes
Constellation
Dorado

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Magenta Hubble (WFC3) Optical (H-alpha + Nii) 658.0 nm
Orange Hubble (WFC3) Infrared (Z) 850.0 nm
Blue Hubble (WFC3) Optical (B) 475.0 nm
Grayscale Hubble (ACS) Optical (SII) 673.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Magenta
Orange
Blue
Grayscale
Esahubble_heic0910j_1280
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ID
heic0910j
Subject Category
C.4.1.4  
Subject Name
CAL 35, LHA 120-N 132D
Credits
NASA, ESA and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team
Release Date
2009-09-09T17:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0910j/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Distance in light years to the LMC
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
WFC3, WFC3, WFC3, ACS
Color Assignment
Magenta, Orange, Blue, Grayscale
Band
Optical, Infrared, Optical, Optical
Bandpass
H-alpha + Nii, Z, B, SII
Central Wavelength
658, 850, 475, 673
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
81.2583340729, -69.6421076198
Reference Dimension
3650.0, 3105.0
Reference Pixel
1825.0, 1552.5
Scale
-1.3889283816e-05, 1.3889283816e-05
Rotation
-137.77999999999983
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
Postal Code
D-85748
Country
Germany
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
ESA/Hubble
Publisher ID
esahubble
Resource ID
heic0910j
Metadata Date
2009-08-24T12:52:49-04:00
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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