Shockwave of Supernova 1987A as it slammed into debris that ringed the original star before its demise. Credit: Yvette Cendes, Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Toronto
Astronomers have observed the aftermath of Supernova 1987A over a 25-year period, from 1992 to 2017. Since it first appeared in the southern night sky on February 24th 1987, Supernova 1987A has been one of the most studied objects in the history of astronomy.
The supernova was the cataclysmic death of a blue supergiant star, some 168,000 light-years from Earth, in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way Galaxy. It was the brightest supernova to appear in our skies since Kepler’s Supernova in 1604 and the first since the invention of the telescope.
The brilliant new star...
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