This spectacular image of galaxy NGC 2442 was captured by the NASA / ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: ESA / Hubble & NASA, S. Smartt et al.
This image of the NASA/ ESA Hubble Space Telescope has the spectacular galaxy NGC 2442.
This galaxy was the host of a supernova explosion known as SN2015F, which was created by a white dwarf star. The white dwarf was part of a binary galaxy and siphoned mass of his companion, eventually became too greedy and took on more than it could handle. This unbalanced the star and triggered running nuclear fusion that eventually led to an intensely violent supernova explosion.
SN2015F was discovered in March 2015 in the galaxy named NGC 2442, nicknamed the Meathook Galaxy because of its highly asymmetrical and irregular shape. The supernova shone brightly for a while and was easily visible from Earth via even a small telescope until later that summer.
Credit: Changsu Choi and Myungshin Im (Seoul National University)
Sit back and watch a star explode. The actual supernova happened back when dinosaurs orbited the Earth, but images of the spectacular event began to arrive in 2015. Supernova 2015F was discovered in a nearby spiral system NGC 2442 by Berto Monard in March 2015 and was unusually bright – enough to view with only a small telescope. The pattern of luminosity variation showed a Type Ia supernova – a kind of stellar explosion that results in an Earth-sized white dwarf gaining so much mass that its nucleus crosses the threshold of nuclear fusion, possibly caused by a lower spiral of white dwarf companion in it. Finding and tracking Type Ia supernovae is especially important because their intrinsic brightness can be calibrated, making their apparent brightness a good measure of their distance – and therefore useful for calibrating the distance scale of the entire universe. . The featured video followed the star formation from before explosion images arrived, as it became clear, and for several months when the fission-driven supernova glow disappeared. The remains of SN2015F are now too dim to see without a large telescope.
