Approximately 11,000 years ago, a massive star exploded in a supernova in the vicinity of Earth. Today, astronomers unveil a high-resolution image of what remains.
About 800 light-years away from Earth lies the remains of a massive star that exploded in a supernova around 11,000 years ago. Located in the Vela constellation, hence its name Vela. It is one of the closest supernova remnants to us and has been extensively photographed and studied. The Dark Energy Camera (DECam) mounted on a telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile now provides one of the largest and most detailed images ever obtained.
A High-Definition Image Thanks to a Powerful Instrument
This image showcases the exceptional capabilities of the DECam, a telescope equipped with a four-meter diameter mirror, a nearly one-meter diameter corrective lens, and around sixty charge-coupled devices (CCD) acting as the “eyes” of the camera. The result is images of 570 megapixels each that can be superimposed, as done here, to obtain an image of Vela composed of nearly 1.3 gigapixels.
The image reveals blue and yellow filaments resulting from the compression of the interstellar medium by the hot gas violently ejected into space by the explosion of the massive star thousands of years ago. The supernova remnant now spans about 100 light-years, equivalent to 20 times the diameter of the full moon.
Exploring the Secrets of a Supernova Remnant
At the bottom left of the image of Vela, the pulsar born from the supernova explosion can be seen. It is an ultra-dense object with the mass of a star packed into a body just a few kilometers in diameter. The Vela pulsar still rotates very rapidly, sweeping the sky 11 times per second!