NASA / ESA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured what appears to be a delicate ribbon of gas floating in our galaxy that is actually a very thin section of a supernova remnant caused by a stellar explosion, called SN 1006, that occurred over 1,000 years ago. This supernova was like the brightest star ever seen by humans back on May 1, 1006 A.D. visible even during the day for weeks.
What you’re looking at is heated hydrogen gas caused by the fast shock wave that emits radiation in visible light. The bright edges within the ribbon correspond to places where the shock wave is seen exactly edge on to our line of sight. SN 1006 boasts a diameter of nearly 60 light-years, and it is still expanding at approximately 6 million miles per hour. In related news, this LB-1 stellar black hole shouldn’t even exist in the Milky Way Galaxy.
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This image is a composite of hydrogen-light observations taken with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys in February 2006 and Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 observations in blue, yellow-green, and near-infrared light taken in April 2008. The supernova remnant, visible only in the hydrogen-light filter was assigned a red hue in the Heritage color image,” said NASA’s JPL.
