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APOD: 2026 June 18 Á Possible Supernova Remnant in Galactic Center
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Credit & Copyright: X-ray: NASA/CXC/UCLA/Z.
Zhu et al.; ESA/XMM-Newton;
Optical: PanSTARRS;
Radio: MeerKAT; Image Processing:
NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and P.
Edmonds
Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)
Explanation:
Do you see that blue blob to the lower right of the image center?
Astronomers think that it shows where a massive star exploded
as a supernova whose light reached Earth 1,700
years ago.
The image combines optical
data from the PanSTARRS
telescopes in Hawaii (background stars in red, green, and blue), radio from the MeerKAT telescope in South Africa
(large red cloud) and X-rays from NASA's Chandra
X-ray Observatory and ESAÁs XMM-Newton
(shown in blue).
The large cloud is a star
forming region called Sagittarius
C, which is approximately 50 light-years
in extent and about 26,000 light-years from Earth.
It is located only about 260 light-years from the supermassive
black hole in the center of the Galaxy (off to the left
of the image).
If the blue
blob is confirmed to be a supernova
remnant, it would be one of the closest ever discovered to the Galactic
Center.
In this dense
region, the deaths of massive stars are connected to the birth of new stars through
gas and magnetic fields in a complex way.
Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)
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