Supernova Remnant N 63A
June 8, 2005
A violent and chaotic-looking mass of gas and dust is seen in this Hubble Space Telescope image of a nearby supernova remnant. Denoted N 63A, the object is the remains of a massive star that exploded, spewing its gaseous layers out into an already turbulent region.
The supernova remnant is a member of N 63, a star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Visible from the southern hemisphere, the LMC is an irregular galaxy lying 160,000 light-years from our own Milky Way galaxy. The LMC provides excellent examples of active star formation and supernova remnants to be studied with Hubble.
Topics:
Space plasmas, Magellanic Clouds, Supernovae, Hubble sequence, G350.1-0.3, Galaxy, N63, Supernova, Mensa constellation, Large Magellanic Cloud, Dorado constellation
