Fact Sheet
Hot Jewels
Regions of superhot gas glow like jewels on a necklace in this recent Hubble Space Telescope image of the remnants of Supernova 1987A, a massive star in a nearby galaxy that blasted itself to bits. The ring around the exploded star spans about one light-year. It formed when the star expelled a shell of gas about 20,000 years before it exploded. After it exploded, more material raced outward, eventually colliding with the older gas. As material from the supernova explosion hits the older shell of gas, it forms hotspots with temperatures of several million degrees. Astronomers say that within a few million years, the entire ring will glow as brightly as today's hotspots, as more gas from the supernova strikes it. [Credit: NASA/P. Challis, R. Kirshner (CfA), B. Sugerman (STScI)]
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