[▲ Supernova remnant “N132D”. Colors are pseudocolor (Credit: X-ray: NASA/SAO/CXC; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech/A. Tappe & J. Rho)]
This image is in the Large Magellanic Cloud about 160,000 light-years from Earth.Supernova remnant “N132D”was created from data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
A supernova remnant is a celestial body observed after a supernova explosion caused by a massive star. The shock waves generated by the supernova explosion spread to the surroundings, heating the gas and emitting electromagnetic waves such as visible light and X-rays.
The pink, shell-like shape of N132D represents the collision of the high-energy shock wave from the supernova explosion with the surrounding dust, while the surrounding green colored areas represent polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. It shows small organic molecules called hydrocarbons (PAHs).
According to NASA’s JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) published in 2007,PAHs are known to be involved in the origin of life, and are said to have been found around comets, star-forming regions, and protoplanetary disks.The detection around N132D, a supernova remnant, means that the organic molecules that make up life survive in the harsh environment of a supernova explosion.
A supernova explosion is said to have occurred near the early solar system about 5 billion years ago, and it is possible that the PAHs that survived the explosion played a role in the birth of life on Earth.
The image at the beginning is NASA’s “A Supernova’s Shockwaves” is introduced again on July 19, 2022.
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Sentence/Tetsuro Yoshida