* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: SNR 0104-72.3

Blobrana · L

Penn State astronomers have used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to produce a new image of a ghostly exploded star with an unusual shape in a galaxy near the Milky Way. Astronomers think the object may be the remains of a white-dwarf star that disintegrated in a thermonuclear explosion, known as a Type Ia supernova, but it does not look like other likely Type Ia remnants found in our own Milky Way galaxy.
The research that led to the new image of this object was led by Penn State University astronomers Sangwook Park and Jae-Joon Lee, and is being presented this week at the 214th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Pasadena, California. The strange object, known as SNR 0104-72.3 (SNR 0104 for short), is in the Small Magellanic Cloud galaxy, which is a neighbour of our Milky Way galaxy.

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Blobrana · L

Credit: X-ray (NASA/CXC/Penn State/S.Park & J.Lee); IR (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

A new image from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows a supernova remnant with a different look. This object, known as SNR 0104-72.3 (SNR 0104 for short), is in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a small neighbouring galaxy to the Milky Way. Astronomers think that SNR 0104 is the remains of a so-called Type Ia supernova caused by the thermonuclear explosion of a white dwarf.
In this composite made of X-rays from Chandra shown in purple and infrared data from Spitzer shown in green and red, SNR 0104 looks unlike other likely Type Ia remnants found in our own Galaxy. While objects such as the Kepler and Tycho supernova remnants appear circular, the shape of SNR 0104 in X-rays is not. Instead, the image is dominated by two bright lobes of emission (seen to the upper right and lower left). The large amount of iron in these lobes indicates that SNR 0104 was likely formed by a Type Ia supernova.

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Position (2000): RA 01h 05m 51.8s, Dec -72° 03' 38.1"