NASA kicked off the new year with what it called a “double explosion” — that is, an image of the supernova remnant 30 Doradus B, or 30 Dor B. Why is it double? Well, while creating this image, a team of astronomers studying the remains discovered that they couldn't have been formed by a single object Supernova. Instead, researchers believe it was created by at least two.
30 floor B is the V area Large Magellanic Clouda small space galaxy from milky way Which is located about 160,000 light-years away from us. They include “dark clouds of gas, young stars, high-energy shocks, and extremely hot gas.” NASA. A team led by Wei-An Chen of National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan, used more than two million seconds of observation time from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory To study 30 roles b.
But to get the high level of detail you see in the 30 Dor B image, the team combined that data from Chandra with additional data from Chile's 4-meter Blanco telescope. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope And NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. This combined light, in the infrared, X-ray and visible spectra, gives scientists a very good look at all the action inside 30 Dor B.
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Studying that data, the researchers noticed two distinct features in their maps that are thought to be from different supernovae: an X-ray envelope 130 light-years across, and a pulsar wind nebula. The first supernova is thought to have occurred more than 5,000 years ago, creating the X-ray envelope. Then, about 5,000 years ago, a second supernova likely created the pulsar wind nebula. It's also possible, the team says, that additional supernovae could have occurred further back in time to impact 30 Dor B.
From a scientific perspective, this image could help researchers gather information about the life and death of massive stars and the supernovae they produce. For the casual viewer, you can simply enjoy the 30 Dor B's watercolor-like appearance.
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