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March 17, 2021 at 6:00 am
A cloud of expanding gas in space is the largest supernova remnant ever seen in the sky, a new study confirms.
The Milky Way has some 300 known supernova remnants, each made of debris from an exploded star mixed with interstellar material swept up by the blast. This supersized one, located in the constellation Antlia, isn’t necessarily the biggest of all physically, but thanks to its proximity to us, it
looks the biggest. As seen from Earth, it spans a region of sky more than 40 times the size of a full moon, astronomer Robert Fesen of Dartmouth College and his colleagues report February 25 at arXiv.org. The Antlia remnant appears about three times as large as the previous champion, the Vela supernova remnant (
The James Webb Space Telescope. Image credits ASA’s James Webb Space Telescope / Flickr.
Known as comprehensive systems tests, these procedures are meant to ensure that vital systems aboard a craft are fully functional ahead of a launch. The two steps that the telescope successfully passed are tests pertaining to its internal electronic suite, as well as the confirmation that its four scientific instruments can send and receive data properly through the network it will be using in space. The tests took place at Northrop Grumman in collaboration with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.
Closer to space
“It’s been amazing to witness the level of expertise, commitment, and collaboration across the team during this important milestone,” said Jennifer Love-Pruitt, Northrop Grumman’s electrical vehicle engineering lead on the Webb observatory. “It’s definitely a proud moment because we demonstrated Webb’s electrical readiness.”
Spaceflight Insider
Laurel Kornfeld
The Hubble Space Telescope, imaged during its last servicing mission in 2009. Credit: NASA
During its 31 years of activity, the Hubble Space Telescope has been “one of the most successful scientific experiments in history,” used to research numerous fields of astronomy ranging from cosmology and the expansion of the universe to the characterization of exoplanets, said astronomer Tom Brown of the Space Telescope Science Institute in a March 2 online presentation.
A joint NASA/European Space Agency project, Hubble launched in 1990. Through servicing missions conducted between then and 2009, it became increasingly more powerful.
The telescope orbits the Earth at an altitude of 333 miles (536 kilometers) and takes 95 minutes to circle the planet. It is powered by solar arrays when traversing Earth’s day side and batteries when passing over its night side.
“Hubble isn’t just a satellite; it’s about humanity’s quest for knowledge,” said astronaut and former NASA Chief Scientist, John M. Grunsfeld about the iconic space telescope. Looking at Hubble’s ground-breaking “Deep Field” images that show the most distant galaxies that can be observed in visible light leaves us feeling like something else is going about its business out there.
Transformed Our View of Where We Are
“We are born into the world like actors who are placed on a stage without a script. The Hubble Space Telescope has transformed our understanding of that stage,” wrote Harvard astronomer, Avi Loeb in an email to The Daily Galaxy. “From discovering four moons around Pluto to gorgeous images of the delivery rooms of young stars and planets, to the accelerated expansion of the universe at large, this telescope transformed our view of where we are to the realm of the magnificent.”