Bright Supernova in Nearby Galaxy NGC 2403 | Hubble Space Telescope
This detailed view of spiral galaxy NGC 2403 shows the location of Supernova 2004dj, numerous star clusters, and several other stars that exploded in previous years. The region was observed with the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys on Aug. 17, 2004
The image at left represents a small region of NGC 2403, a galaxy located 11 million light-years from Earth. The photo was taken two months before a massive star exploded. The image pinpoints the location of the stellar blast, known as supernova 2004dj, within a cluster of massive, generally blue (but some red) stars called Sandage 96. The cluster's total mass is estimated at about 24,000 times the mass of the Sun. The stars in this cluster are so far away that their light blends together, appearing as the light of a single star. The yellow object below and to the left of the cluster is a foreground star in our Milky Way Galaxy. The pink blob at bottom, center is a star-birth region. This image was taken May 8, 2004, with the WIYN 0.9-meter mosaic camera at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona.
The image at right pinpoints the supernova blast. The photo was taken on Aug. 17, 2004, with the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys. The light from this outburst outshines every star in the massive cluster. Similar blue clusters of stars can be seen throughout the image. The bluish-pink blob towards the bottom of the image is a large star-birth region.
The explosion of a massive star blazes with the light of 200 million Suns in this NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope image. The arrow at top right in the second image points to the stellar blast, called a supernova. The supernova is so bright in this image that it easily could be mistaken for a foreground star in our Milky Way Galaxy. And yet, this supernova, called SN 2004dj, resides far beyond our galaxy. Its home is in the outskirts of NGC 2403, a galaxy located 11 million light-years from Earth.
A supernova is the biggest explosion that humans have ever seen. Each blast is the extremely bright, super-powerful explosion of a star.
Credit: NASA, ESA, A.V. Filippenko (University of California, Berkeley), P. Challis (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), et al.
Release Date: Sept. 2, 2004
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