In the year 1181 a rare supernova explosion appeared in the night sky, staying visible for 185 consecutive days. Historical records show that the supernova looked like a temporary 'star' in the constellation Cassiopeia shining as bright as Saturn.
Ever since, scientists have tried to find the supernova's remnant. At first it was thought that this could be the nebula around the pulsar — the dense core of a collapse star — named 3C 58. However closer investigations revealed that the pulsar is older than supernova 1181.
In the last decade, another contender was discovered; Pa 30 is a nearly circular nebula with a central star in the constellation Cassiopeia. It is pictured here combining images from several telescopes. This composite image uses data across the electromagnetic spectrum and shows a spectacular new view of the supernova remnant. This allows us to marvel at the same object that appeared in our ancestors' night sky more than 800 years ago.
X-ray observations by ESA's XMM-Newton (blue) show the full extent of the nebula and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (cyan) pinpoints its central source. The nebula is barely visible in optical light but shines bright in infrared light, collected by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Space Explorer (red and pink). Interestingly, the radial structure in the image consists of heated sulfur that glows in visible light, observed with the ground-based Hiltner 2.4 m telescope at the MDM Observatory (green) in Arizona, USA, as do the stars in the background by Pan-STARRS (white) in Hawaii, USA.
Credit: X-ray: (Chandra) NASA/CXC/U. Manitoba/C. Treturik, (XMM-Newton) ESA/C. Treturik; Optical: (Pan-STARRS) NOIRLab/MDM/Dartmouth/R. Fesen; Infrared: (WISE) NASA/JPL/Caltech/; Image Processing: Univ. of Manitoba/Gilles Ferrand and Jayanne English
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Technicians inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida install and test one of several antennas on a solar array Wednesday, March 20, 2024, for the agency’s Europa Clipper spacecraft which will study Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, to determine if the planet can support life. REASON, (Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Near-surface) instrument will use the antennas to send both very high frequency radio waves and high frequency to penetrate up to 18 miles (30 kilometers) deep to search the ocean, measure ice thickness, and study the topography, composition, and roughness of Europa’s surface. The Europa Clipper spacecraft will ship to Florida later this year from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Southern California in preparation for launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy’s Launch Complex 39A targeting October 2024. Photo credit: NASA/Glenn Benson
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Tags: ATLO Airbus Assembly Europa Europa Clipper Falcon Heavy JPL Jet Propulsion Lab Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) Jupiter KSC Kennedy Space Center LSP Launch Services Program NASA National Aeronautical and Space Administration PHSF Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility SpaceX Test and Launch Operations antenna icy moon internal ocean moon rocket solar arrays spacecraft
Technicians inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida install and test one of several antennas on a solar array Wednesday, March 20, 2024, for the agency’s Europa Clipper spacecraft which will study Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, to determine if the planet can support life. REASON, (Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Near-surface) instrument will use the antennas to send both very high frequency radio waves and high frequency to penetrate up to 18 miles (30 kilometers) deep to search the ocean, measure ice thickness, and study the topography, composition, and roughness of Europa’s surface. The Europa Clipper spacecraft will ship to Florida later this year from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Southern California in preparation for launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy’s Launch Complex 39A targeting October 2024. Photo credit: NASA/Glenn Benson
NASA image use policy.
Tags: ATLO Airbus Assembly Europa Europa Clipper Falcon Heavy JPL Jet Propulsion Lab Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) Jupiter KSC Kennedy Space Center LSP Launch Services Program NASA National Aeronautical and Space Administration PHSF Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility SpaceX Test and Launch Operations antenna icy moon internal ocean moon rocket solar arrays spacecraft
Technicians inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida install and test antennas on a solar array on Wednesday, March 20, 2024, for the agency's Europa Clipper spacecraft which will study Jupiter's icy moon, Europa, to determine if the planet can support life. The REASON, (Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Near-surface) instrument will use the antennas to send both very high frequency radio waves and high frequency to penetrate up to 18 miles (30 kilometers) deep to search the ocean, measure ice thickness, and study the topography, composition, and roughness of Europa's surface. The Europa Clipper spacecraft will ship to Florida later this year from NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Southern California in preparation for launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy's Launch Complex 39A targeting October. Photo credit: NASA/Isaac Watson
NASA image use policy.
Tags: ATLO Airbus Assembly Europa Europa Clipper Falcon Heavy JPL Jet Propulsion Lab Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) Jupiter KSC Kennedy Space Center LSP Launch Services Program NASA National Aeronautical and Space Administration PHSF Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility SpaceX Test and Launch Operations antenna icy moon internal ocean moon rocket solar arrays spacecraft