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#sn1987a

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Watching SN1987A unfold over decades, with older instruments like Hubble, and now JWST + combining this with other wavelength regimes, like radio emissions from ALMA, is like being in a fun class on supernovae that runs for most of our lives. We just keep learning!

Now if the neutron star would just become a pulsar, and beam in our direction, I will be a very happy chap!

Webb finds evidence for a neutron star at heart of young supernova remnant

esawebb.org/news/weic2404/?lan

The supernova, known as SN 1987A, occurred 160 000 light-years from Earth in the Large Magellanic Cloud. #SN1987A was a type II supernova that was observed on Earth in 1987, the first supernova that was visible to the naked eye since 1604 — before the advent of telescopes.

@astronomy

www.esawebb.orgWebb finds evidence for a neutron star at heart of young supernova remnantThe NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has found the best evidence yet for emission from a neutron star at the site of a recently observed supernova. The supernova, known as SN 1987A, occurred 160 000 light-years from Earth in the Large Magellanic Cloud. SN 1987A was a type II supernova [1] that was observed on Earth in 1987, the first supernova that was visible to the naked eye since 1604 — before the advent of telescopes. It has thus offered the astronomical community a rare opportunity to study the evolution of a supernova and what was left behind, from the very beginning. SN 1987A was a core-collapse supernova, meaning the compacted remains at its core are expected to have formed either a neutron star or a black hole. Evidence for such a compact object has long been sought, and whilst indirect evidence for the presence of a neutron star has previously been found, this is the first time that the effects of high energy emission from the young neutron star has been detected.

Astronomers have discovered a #neutronstar in the remnants of a 1987 #supernova explosion. In a paper published this week, astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope identified a neutron star in the heart of #SN1987a, an explosion of a star 20 times the mass of the sun in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud. Astronomers believed that the supernova left behind a neutron star, but past efforts to detect it had come up short. Infrared observations by #JWST, though, detected emission lines of key elements that prove, researchers concluded, that there is a neutron star present in the supernova remnant.

science.org/content/article/st

Ohhh, some exciting astro news!!! 👀👀👀

A new paper has found more evidence for a neutron star in the supernova 1987A remnant using JWST's MIRI/MRS and NIRSpec/IFU!

science.org/doi/10.1126/scienc

However, a secondary paper from a few days back, which also used JWST MIRI, found no evidence of the compact remnant in their data: arxiv.org/html/2402.14014v1

Almost 2 years ago I wrote a feature article looking at the evidence for this, so these new papers and findings are exciting!

spaceaustralia.com/feature/did

📸 Fransson et al. / Bouchet et al.

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Here are a few more images of Supernova 1987A to feast your eyes on 🤩

All 3 images show the beaded inner ring, composed of gas emitted by the progenitor star and lit up with interaction with the supernova ejecta.

The first two images also show the two faint outer rings, whose gas consists of material ejected by the supernova progenitor at an earlier stage of evolution than the inner ring.

esahubble.org/images/opo9719b/
hubblesite.org/contents/media/
webbtelescope.org/contents/med

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Astronomers expected SN 1987A to have collapsed into a dense neutron star. But clear evidence for it has been difficult to find.

In 2021, high energy X-ray data from NuSTAR and Chandra provided some evidence for the existence of a structure known as a "pulsar wind nebula" at the center of SN 1987A. A pulsar wind nebula is a cloud of charged particles and magnetic fields created by a rapidly spinning neutron star.

Promising but not definitive.

nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra

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This series of images from Hubble shows the evolution of the bright spots on the inner ring around Supernova 1987A from 1994 to 2018.

After the initial flash of UV radiation, which lit up dense areas of the ring, the rings cooled down until they got hit by the shock wave of material ejected by the SN, which compress and heat the gas in the ring, making it glow. Spots started to dim again after 2011.

arxiv.org/abs/1910.09582

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This image of SN 1987A was taken by Hubble in 1990, 3.5 years after the explosion.

The SN was about 0.1 light years in diameter then but the ring radius was estimated at ~0.75 ly.

Scientists speculated that the gas ring was created by the progenitor star 10K years ago. The ring material was ionized and heated by the intense flash of ionizing radiation from the supernova which must have reached the ring within a year after the explosion.

hubblesite.org/contents/media/

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Supernova 1987A was discovered on Feb 24, 1987.
Four days after discovery, its progenitor star was tentatively identified as Sanduleak −69 202, a blue supergiant, a high-mass high-luminosity star.

One theory about SN 1987A is that it was a binary star system, in which the smaller companion merged into the more massive star. Subsequently, around 170K years ago, the star went supernova, ejecting matter and shockwaves into the surrounding gas/dust disk.

esahubble.org/images/heic0704j

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The Closest Supernova Seen in the Modern Era, Examined by JWST

In 1987, a supernova suddenly appeared in the Large Magellanic Cloud and was studied by astronomers worldwide. Although the detonating star was 165,000 light-years away, this was still the closest supernova seen in centuries. Astronomers have continued to study the expanding debris cloud over the decades, and now JWST has joined the effort, revealing new features never before seen with other observatories. The central core is so dense with gas and dust that its central neutron star remnant is still hidden, even to JWST.

#jwst #sn1987a

nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2023/

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Where is Supernova SN 1987A located? It is located at the edge of the Tarantula Nebula, which is part of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a neighboring galaxy, about 160,000 light years away.

The LMC is visible in the Southern Hemisphere and up to 20° North.

See map and zoom-ins below.

Image sources:
stellarium-web.org/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Ma
jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia23647-t
webbtelescope.org/contents/med


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New image of Supernova 1987A remnant from the JWST.

SN 1987A, whose explosion was observed in 1987 (it exploded 160K years ago), is one of the most studied objects.

Besides the dust-filled central structure, the bright beaded ring and 2 faint outer rings, the new image shows 2 faint crescents near the center.

The beaded ring is formed from the SN shockwave hitting material ejected ~20,000 years ago by the progenitor star.

Let's explore SN 1987A.

webbtelescope.org/contents/med

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