Hubble Space Telescope Spots a Supernova 80 Million Lightyears Away
We’ve been featuring a lot of space-based photo news lately, and for good reason. Since the Curiosity’s landing on Mars, there has been a renewed interest in life beyond Earth. That, and NASA has been rockin’ it with some seriously cool stuff. Like this, a photo captured by the Hubble Space Telescope of a supernova exploding 80 million lightyears away.
“A new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows NGC 5806, a spiral galaxy in the constellation Virgo (the Virgin). It lies around 80 million light years from Earth. Also visible in this image is a supernova explosion called SN 2004dg.
The exposures that are combined into this image were carried out in early 2005 in order to help pinpoint the location of the supernova, which exploded in 2004. The afterglow from this outburst of light, caused by a giant star exploding at the end of its life, can be seen as a faint yellowish dot near the bottom of the galaxy.“
“This image is produced from three exposures in visible and infrared light, observed by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. The field of view is approximately 3.3 by 1.7 arcminutes.”
Now c’mon. That’s pretty awesome.
