Remains of supernova SN 1006 - Supernova remnant SN 1006 - Remains of supernova SN...

Remains of supernova SN 1006 - Supernova remnant SN 1006 - Remains of supernova SN 1006 located 7000 years ago - light in the constellation Wolf. This supernova that appeared in 1006 is the result of a white dwarf star that absorbs the matter of a companion star became unstable and eventually exploded. This image is a composite of X-ray images obtained by the Chandra telescope (blue), by Cerro Tololo's 90 cm telescope (yellow) and by the Digitized Sky Survey (orange and light blue), and by the VLA and the Green Bank's telescope radio (red). Just over a thousand years ago, the stellar explosion known as supernova SN 1006 was observed. It was brighter than Venus, and visible during the day for weeks. The brightest supernova ever recorded on Earth, this spectacular light show was documented in China, Japan, Europe, and the Arab world. Astronomers now understand that SN 1006 was caused by a white dwarf star that captured mass from a companion star until the white dwarf became unstable and exploded. Recent observations of the remnant of SN 1006 reveal the liberation of elements such as iron that were previously locked up inside the star. Because no material falls back into a neutron star or black hole after this type of supernova explosion, the liberation of this star's contents is complete. This is a composite image of the SN 1006 supernova remnant, which is located about 7000 light years from Earth. Shown here are X - ray data from Nasa's Chandra X - ray Observatory (blue), optical data from the University of Michigan's 0.9 meter Curtis Schmidt telescope at the NSF's Cerro Tololo Inter - American Observatory (CTIO; yellow) and the Digitized Sky Survey (orange and light blue), plus radio data from the NRAO's Very Large Array and Green Bank Telescope (VLA/GB/GBV T ; red)