NGC 6984 hosted two rare, nearly simultaneous supernovae. Hubble’s new data helps probe their origins and adds stunning detail to past images.
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week features the galaxy NGC 6984, an elegant spiral galaxy in the constellation Indus roughly 200 million light-years away from Earth. The galaxy is a familiar sight for Hubble, having already been captured in 2013. The sweeping spiral arms are threaded through with a delicate tracery of dark lanes of gas and dust, and studded with bright stars and luminous star-forming regions.
These new observations were made following an extremely rare astronomical event — a double supernova in NGC 6984. Supernovae are unimaginably violent explosions on a truly vast scale, precipitated by the deaths of massive stars. These events are powerful but rare and fleeting — a single supernova can outshine its host galaxy for a brief time. The discovery of two supernovae at virtually the same time and location (in astronomical terms) prompted speculation from astronomers that the two supernovae may somehow be physically linked. Using optical and ultraviolet observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, astronomers sought to get a better look at the site of the two supernovae, hopefully allowing them to discover if the two supernova explosions were indeed linked. Their findings could give astronomers important clues into the lives of binary stars.
As well as helping to unravel an astronomical mystery, these new observations added more data to the 2013 observations, and allowed this striking new image to be created. The observations — each of which covers only a narrow range of wavelengths — add new details and a greater range of colors to the image.
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2 Comments
its the black hole at the very centre
do you see it
well stretch your eyes 55,000 light years out to the edge of the spiral arm tracery
now tell me
have you ever witnessed such a force before
the ability of the centre core a few astronomical units wide to move all those spiral arms
all five of them to move them forward counterclockwise
what strength what power what force what ability it leaves the hulk to shame
and believe it or not its not warping space
just moving its arms around like a ballerina in swan lake doing a pirohette
and notice how the motion occurs as per the inverse square law
and not by the normal pathetic explanation
that as the ballerina arms get closer and closer to her body
that she moves faster and faster
what a load of ducklings
you see the force is constant and moves equal stars through equal space at the same rate
thus creating no warp in space
its shock and awe the power the strength the pushing force
its 65978 in its starlight corner of the universe
Where is the you so called said double supernovae, did you ever see it or just like that boasting ?. When you say that show the proof where is that, you are only showing a spiral galaxy that’s all, any normal person also tell you that, it’s just a normal spiral galaxy that’s all, shut your mouth and show clearly where is the double supernovae, show me the proof