NASA Reveals New Images of SN 1987a, Massive Supernova With Brightness Equal To 100 Million Suns For Its 30th Anniversary Discovery [PHOTOS]

Discovered in 1987, astronomers had found the largest supernova brightly in over 400 years, the SN 1987a. It is so massive, it also shines bright as 100 million suns as reports say. So, in commemoration of its 30-year discovery, NASA released overwhelming images, time-lapse movies, and a 3D model for people to visualize it for themselves.

According to Huffington Post, the SN 1987a’s explosion was determined to be the closest to be ever observed from Earth since it sits in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud. Hence, its discovery and study of its existence and explosion was very helpful in collecting data for the last stages of stellar evolution said Robert Kirshner of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

“The details of this transition will give astronomers a better understanding of the life of the doomed star, and how it ended,” was also said by the first author of Chandra study on the SN 1987a, Kari Frank of Penn State University. Supernovas were then mentioned to occur if a change in a star’s core happens to explode which is then they are the brightest explosions in space.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) were then mentioned to be the tools which helped astronomers observe the SN 1987a before its last explosion. Astronomy then also noted that those three tools identified a ring-like structure around the supernova’s progenitor. Those rings were then said to be ejected by the star 20,000 years before its explosion. Aside from that, two outer rings were also said to be found surrounding the star.

Yet, amid discovery, there are many things not yet known about the titanic supernova, SN 1987a. Reports then pointed that the not yet known things were the emitted neutrinos two hours before its first optical light was seen. Those waves of neutrinos have then been registered in the underground neutrino detectors of Japan and the United States.

What’s more is that the detected waves were then guessed to have formed a compact object like a neutron star or a black hole as the SN 1987a exploded. Yet, none of both was found.

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