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Herschel view of the region around Supernova 1987A

Herschel view of the region around Supernova 1987A


Date: 07 July 2011
Satellite: Herschel
Depicts: Supernova 1987A
Copyright: ESA/Herschel/PACS/SPIRE/NASA-JPL/Caltech/UCL/STScI

This colour-composite image shows a far-infrared view of the region surrounding the remnant of the famous supernova SN1987A as observed by Herschel. SN1987A resides in the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way, and it was first observed from Earth 24 years ago. At a distance of only 160 000 light years, this backyard supernova has become a 'local' laboratory for close-up studies of stellar demise. The remnant of SN1987A is visible as a faint dot of light at the centre of the image.

The detection of SN1987A with Herschel demonstrates that this object contains an amount of dust nearly equivalent to the mass of the Sun and roughly 1000 times larger than what was previously believed. At temperatures of 16–23 Kelvin, the newly discovered component is about 20 times colder than any dust detected in the past in this supernova remnant.

This result confirms that supernovae are able to produce significant quantities of dust over very short timescales and has profound implications on the understanding of how dust first formed in cosmic history.

This image is based on observations obtained with PACS at 100 and 160 micron and with SPIRE at 250 micron, respectively. These observations are part of the HERschel Inventory of The Agents of Galaxy Evolution in the Magellanic Clouds (HERITAGE) Key Programme, a survey designed to probe star formation in both the Large and the Small Magellanic Clouds.

Last Update: 1 September 2019
29-Mar-2024 01:47 UT

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