Hubble Captures the Supernova Remnant 1E 0102.2-7219 (image)
Caption
Featured in this Hubble image is an expanding, gaseous corpse -- a supernova remnant -- known as 1E 0102.2-7219. It is the remnant of a star that exploded long ago in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way located roughly 200 000 light-years away. Because the gaseous knots in this supernova remnant are moving at different speeds and directions from the supernova explosion, those moving toward Earth are colored blue in this composition and the ones moving away are shown in red. This new Hubble image shows these ribbons of gas speeding away from the explosion site at an average speed of 3.2 million kilometers per hour. At that speed, you could travel to the Moon and back in 15 minutes.
Credit
NASA, ESA, and J. Banovetz and D. Milisavljevic (Purdue University)
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