By ESA/Hubble
May 8, 2022
Hubble Space Telescope image of an object known as DEM L249, the scruffy remnant of a supernova. Credit: ESA/Hubble & & NASA, Y. Chu
The tattered remnant of a supernova– a titanic surge marking completion of the life of a passing away star– is revealed in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This cosmic object– known as DEM L249– is believed to have actually been developed by a Type 1a supernova during the death throes of a white dwarf. While white overshadows are usually stable, they can slowly accumulate matter if they are part of a binary star system. This accretion of matter continues till the white dwarf reaches an emergency and goes through a devastating supernova surge, ejecting a huge quantity of material into space at the same time.
DEM L249 depends on the constellation Mensa and is within the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way only 160,000 light-years from Earth. The LMC is an ideal natural lab where astronomers can study the births, lives, and deaths of stars, as this region is close by, oriented towards Earth, and consists of fairly little light-absorbing interstellar dust. The information in this image were collected by Hubbles Wide Field Camera 3 instrument, and were obtained throughout a systematic search of the LMC for the making it through companions of white dwarf stars which have actually gone supernova.
