Joe Rao is Space.com's skywatching columnist, as well as a veteran meteorologist and eclipse chaser who also serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for Natural History magazine, the Farmers' Almanac and other publications. Joe is an 8-time Emmy-nominated meteorologist who served the Putnam Valley region of New York for over 21 years. You can find him on Twitter and YouTube tracking lunar and solar eclipses, meteor showers and more. To find out Joe's latest project, visit him on Twitter.
In such stars, the core produces successively heavier elements to balance the incessant crush of gravity. But once the core begins creating iron, a star's days are numbered; the formation of elements heavier than iron consumes rather than produces energy. Eventually, since the core can no longer support the star's immense weight, it collapses, triggering a cataclysmic supernova explosion.
This stunning view of M101, also known as the Pinwheel galaxy, is one of the largest images Hubble has ever captured of a spiral galaxy, assembled from 51 exposures taken during various studies over nearly ten years. Ground-based images were used to fill in the portions of the galaxy that Hubble did not observe.
, F. Bresolin , J. Trauger , J. Mould , Y.-H. Chu and STScI; CFHT Image: Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope/J.-C. Cuillandre/Coelum; NOAO Image: G. Jacoby, B. Bohannan, M. Hanna/NOAO/AURA/NSF) That is what we're seeing now, although actually, the star bursting apart did not occur this past Friday, for M101 is located at a distance of roughly 21 million light-years fromSo the resultant light from this explosion has been traveling through space for 21 million years before it finally reached our planet last week.
Astronomers will certainly continue to monitor the supernova in the days to come, noting any fluctuations in brightness before it eventually fades away.
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