Long ago, the massive star that produced Supernova 1987A lost most of its outer layers in a slowly moving stellar wind that formed a vast cloud of gas. Before the star exploded, a high-speed wind from the star carved out a cavity in the cool gas cloud. The red ring in the illustration represents the inner edge of the cloud of cool gas. The fingers protruding inward were produced by the interaction of the high-speed wind with the dense circumstellar cloud. The collision of the outward-moving supernova shock wave (yellow) with the dense fingers of cool gas produce bright spots (white) of optical and X-ray emission. The expanding debris (blue) of the exploded star lags behind the shock wave and, except for a thin shell around the outer edge (gold), is too cool to produce X-rays. (Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss)
description
Long ago, the massive star that produced Supernova 1987A lost most of its outer layers in a slowly moving stellar wind that formed a vast cloud of gas. Before the star exploded, a high-speed wind from the star carved out a cavity in the cool gas cloud. The red ring in the illustration represents the inner edge of the cloud of cool gas. The fingers protruding inward were produced by the interaction of the high-speed wind with the dense circumstellar cloud. The collision of the outward-moving supernova shock wave (yellow) with the dense fingers of cool gas produce bright spots (white) of optical and X-ray emission. The expanding debris (blue) of the exploded star lags behind the shock wave and, except for a thin shell around the outer edge (gold), is too cool to produce X-rays. (Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss)
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