2023-10-29 17:30:42
I wrote – Marwa Al-Sharif: This weekend, a NASA rocket will study an exciting stellar event about 2,600 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. In that pocket of the universe, a massive star, perhaps 20 times the size of our Sun, exploded in a bright supernova that would have been bright enough for those on Earth to see with the naked eye, even during the day. It expanded three times the size of the full moon in 2012, and is now thought to be 120 light-years across. The remnant, known to astronomers as the Cygnus Loop, is an extremely rare find, because it reflects an ongoing supernova explosion. It shows us in real time how the heavy elements formed in the core of a departing star are returned to the universe, where the next generation of stars and galaxies will inherit them and emerge over the eons. “Supernovae like the one that created the Chicken Ring have a huge impact on how galaxies form,” Brian Fleming of the University of Colorado Boulder, the principal investigator on the upcoming mission, said in a statement. Fleming and his team will observe the Cygnus Loop on Sunday by launching an instrument atop a small sounding rocket into suborbital space. The INFUSE mission (short for “Integrated Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Experiment”) launches from New Mexico on Sunday at 11:35 PM ET (0335 GMT on October 30) and is expected to collect information about the remnants for a few minutes of elevation. 150 miles (240 km). Specifically, the instrument will collect light streaming from the chicken ring at far-ultraviolet wavelengths. This flare shows that the remaining dust and gas, thought to be between 90,000 and 540,000 degrees Fahrenheit (about 50,000 to 300,000 degrees Celsius), is colliding with extremely cold gas in space as it expands. “INFUSE will monitor how the supernova dumps energy into the Milky Way by capturing the emitted light just as the blast wave collides with pockets of cold gas floating around the galaxy,” Fleming said in the same statement. Astronomers say this data will tell them where specific elements are located along the remnants, and will ultimately help them understand the life cycles of stars and galaxies. Read also:
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