esahubble_opo0429l October 6th, 2004
Credit: NASA, ESA, The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Four hundred years ago a "new star" appeared in the western sky, rivaling the brilliance of the nearby planets. In fact this 'new star' was a supernova, now named Kepler's supernova, and was the last such object seen to explode in our Milky Way galaxy.Seen here are some of its remains. This image was taken with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) with filters onboard to isolate visible light emitted by hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen in the remnant but let through starlight from foreground and background stars. The image reveals in Kepler's supernova remnant the detailed knots, which aredense clumps that form behind the outward moving shock wave, and filamentary ribbons, whichreveal where the shock wave is encountering lower-density, more uniform interstellar material.
Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA
Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo0429l/
Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany
Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Detailed color mapping information coming soon...
Providers | Sign In