NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory is trying to crack an interstellar mystery.
The space telescope recently snapped an image of Tycho’s supernova remnant, which has a turbulent past. Chandra pointed out a pattern of illuminated clumps and fainter areas in Tycho and they may provide clues on what happened during the death of a star in a supernova.
Tycho was first discovered by Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe in 1572, who noticed a “new star” in the constellation Cassiopeia. This “new star” was located far away from the moon and shed light on the fact that the universe beyond the planets and sun is prone to changes.
Today, astronomers determined that Tycho’s “new star” was actually the death of a star in a supernova. This supernova was classified as a Type Ia, which takes place when a white dwarf star pulls material from or collides with, a nearby star until a violent explosion is triggered by their movements. The white dwarf star is blown to bits and launches its debris into space.
⭐ ➡️💥 A Chandra supernova in the sky… This @chandraxray image captures a star in the constellation Cassiopeia that was obliterated by an explosion, leaving this three-dimensional object: a supernova remnant. What was revealed in its pattern of debris: https://t.co/hMfq5uTdq9 pic.twitter.com/Uh9cpL50T2
— NASA (@NASA) October 22, 2019
Chandra’s new image brings many space questions to the table: What caused this intriguing pattern of clumps and fainter areas after the explosion? Did the explosion cause Tycho’s clumpy appearance or was the aftermath of the blast to blame?
To focus on Tycho’s 3D nature and clumps in the image, scientists chose two narrow ranges of X-ray energies to isolate material (silicon, colored red) traveling away from our planet and moving towards Earth (silicon, colored blue). Other colors shown above (blue-green, green, orange, purple, and yellow) demonstrate a wide range of different energies, elements, and directions of motion. The rainbow effect is caused by combining Chandra’s X-ray data with an optical image of the stars, which are located in the same field of view from the Digitized Sky Survey.
More on Geek.com:
- Gigantic Asteroid Named 1998 HL1 Will Fly By Earth This Week
- Hubble Space Telescope Spots ‘Local’ IC 4653 Galaxy
- Blue Origin Partners With Space Giants to Build Lunar Lander
from Geek.com https://ift.tt/35ZVrNy
via IFTTT
0 comments:
Post a Comment