Brightest supernova in 420 years finally caught by James Webb Space Telescope after explosion detected in 1987
NEW photos of a star that went supernova 36 years ago show never-before-seen details.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observatory captured high-quality shots of the remains of the brightest supernova of the past 420 years with its Near Infrared Camera (NirCam.)
The remains of the supernova known as Supernova 1987A are located about 168,000 light-years away from Earth in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Supernova 1987A exploded and was first identified in 1987.
The photos of Supernova 1987A’s remains revealing new details were discovered in a study led by Mikako Matsuura of Cardiff University, in the UK.
The photos were able to be taken due to the Supernova 1987A’s aftermath still existing and shining bright today.
The aftermath looks like colored gas and rings which astronomers believe is a mixture of material left over from the star interacting with the star’s stellar wind that was emitted before the supernova.
It was once the blue supergiant star called Sanduleak–69 202 and was believed to have a mass about 20 times the sun before it exploded.
Supernova 1987A was one of the brightest observed and closest to Earth which has allowed astronomers to have the opportunity to study the phases before, during, and after the death of a star.
Supernova 1987 still shining so bright even three decades after it exploded has also now allowed photos to be captured that show new details about supernovas.
“Because of its early detection and relative proximity to Earth, SN 1987A has become the best-studied supernova ever,” ESA officials explained in a statement from 2017 about Supernova 1987.
“Prior to SN 1987A, our knowledge of supernovae was simplistic and idealized.
“But by studying the evolution of SN 1987A from supernova to supernova remnant in superb detail, using telescopes in space and on the ground, astronomers have gained revolutionary insights into the deaths of massive stars.”