The Hubble Space Telescope captured an image of the spiral galaxy NGC 298, formerly the site of a Type II supernovaas part of a study on these stellar explosions.
In accordance with scitechdailythe research seeks to explain diversity in Type II supernovae by observing the regions around these eventswhich could reveal information about the history of the stars and surviving companion stars.
Spiral galaxy NGC 298 lies about 89 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus and only a handful of distant galaxies and foreground stars accompany the lone galaxy.
Although NGC 298 appears peaceful, in 1986 it was the site of one of the most extreme events in astronomy: a catastrophic stellar explosion known as a Type II supernova.
The origin of Type II supernovae
Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys captured NGC 298 as part of an investigation into the origins of Type II supernovae. The telescope used the short periods between scheduled observations to explore the aftermath of a series of Type II supernovae, hoping to reconstruct the relationship between supernovae and their parent star systems.
All Type II supernovae They are produced by the collapse and subsequent explosion of young and massive stars.but they can produce a spectacular diversity of brightnesses and spectral features.
Astronomers suspect that the diversity of this cosmic fireworks display could be due to gas and dust being extracted from stars that will eventually produce Type II supernovae.
Observing the region surrounding supernova explosions can reveal traces of the history of the progenitor star preserved in this lost mass, as well as reveal any companion stars that survived the supernova.