Ask the Chatbot Games & Quizzes History & Society Science & Tech Biographies Animals & Nature Geography & Travel Arts & Culture ProCon Money Videos

Supernova remnant: Quick Facts

Written and fact-checked by
The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

The Information Architects maintain a master list of the topics included in the corpus of  Encyclopædia Britannica, and create and manage the relationships between them.
The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Facts

Also Known As SNR

Photos

Detail of the Cygnus Loop.This nebula is the product of a supernova explosion; in this section, the blast wave has encountered an area of dense interstellar gas, creating turbulence in the wave and causing it to glow. The picture is a composite of three images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Supernova 1987A
N132D, remnants of a supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud, as observed by the Hubble Space Telescope.
The Crab Nebula (M1, NGC 1952) in the constellation Taurus is a gaseous remnant of the galactic supernova of 1054 ce. The nebula, 6,500 light-years away, is expanding at 1,100 km (700 miles) per second.
Veil Nebula (NGC 6992) in the constellation CygnusIt glows as it collides with dust and gas in interstellar space. Blue light is emitted from the hot leading edge of the nebula, where the most energetic collisions occur; the red glow is from hydrogen in the cooler gas.
Colorful wisps of red, orange, and blue gas mark the edge of the Cygnus Loop supernova remnant against a dark star-filled background.
Cassiopeia A supernova remnant, in a false-colour composite image synthesized from observations gathered in different spectral regions by three space-based observatories. Red areas, representing infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope, highlight warm dust in the remnant's outer shell. Yellow areas, representing visible-light data collected by the Hubble Space Telescope, show delicate filamentary structures made of warmer gases. Green and blue areas are X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and reveal hot gas that was created when ejected material from the supernova collided at very high velocity with the surrounding gas and dust.
Tycho's Nova
See All Images →

Related Topics and References

Topics
Dig Deeper: More Articles That Discuss This Topic

Related Quizzes

Nicolaus Copernicus. Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543) Polish astronomer. In 1543 he published, forward proof of a Heliocentric (sun centered) universe. Coloured stipple engraving published London 1802. De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri vi.
All About Astronomy
The orbits of the planets and other elements of the solar system, including asteroids, Kuiper belt, Oort cloud, comet
Space Odyssey