6/7/2023 0 Comments Hubble space telescope imagesType Ia supernovae consistently reach a peak brightness of 5 billion times brighter than our Sun before fading over time.īecause supernovae of this type produce this fixed brightness, they are useful tools for astronomers, known as ‘standard candles’, which act as cosmic tape measures. The energy released tears the star apart in a violent explosion, ejecting matter at speeds up to 6% the speed of light and emitting huge amounts of radiation. If the white dwarf reaches a critical mass (1.44 times the mass of our Sun), its core becomes hot enough to ignite carbon fusion, triggering a thermonuclear runaway process that fuses large amounts of oxygen and carbon together in a matter of seconds. The type of supernova seen in these images, known as a Type Ia supernova, originate from a white dwarf in a close binary system accreting material from its companion star. Supernovae are powerful explosions which mark the end of a star’s life. " No Earthly fireworks display can compete with this supernova, captured in its fading glory by the Hubble Space Telescope," shared Riess of this new time-lapse of the supernova explosion in NGC 2525. This time-lapse consists of observations taken over the course of one year, from February 2018 to February 2019. This new and unique time-lapse of Hubble images created by the ESA/Hubble team shows the once bright supernova initially outshining the brightest stars in the galaxy, before fading into obscurity during the year of observations. It appears as a very bright star located on the outer edge of one of its beautiful swirling spiral arms. The supernova is captured by Hubble in exquisite detail within this galaxy in the left portion of the image. The Hubble images center on the barred spiral galaxy NGC 2525, which is located in the constellation of Puppis in the Southern Hemisphere. The NASA/ESA’s Hubble Space Telescope began observing the brilliant brightness of the supernova in February 2018 as part of the research program led by lead researcher and Nobel Laureate Adam Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, USA. The supernova, formally known as SN2018gv, was first spotted in mid-January 2018. Hubble captured these images as part of one of its major investigations, measuring the expansion rate of the Universe, which can help answer fundamental questions about our Universe’s very nature. Supernovae like this one can be used as cosmic tape measures, allowing astronomers to calculate the distance to their galaxies. The NASA/ESA’s Hubble Space Telescope has tracked the fading light of a supernova in the spiral galaxy NGC 2525, located 70 million light years away.
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