• more about #supernovas more comments →
    icelight: Oh #spaceporn posts. How efficiently you come up with new wallpapers for me. more »
    Daveinva: I want to go to there. #space more »
    Bigdamnhero: Wow. Gorgeous. I'm always changing out my wallpaper cause of these. #space more »
    crashedpc - Haifisch: These pictures always remind me of eyeballs. #space more »
    phoenix: Oh guys - you're all so silly. I for one will look forward to the pretty aurora - if anything - this will produce. more »
    SinisterBill prints in color on both sides: SHIELDS!!! more »
    Certifiable: Hm. Well the graduating class of 192009 is pretty frelled then... more »
    GreyHammer: welp if space radiation is going to wash over the planet i call dr doom powers. more »
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    The Stormy Heart Of The Pinwheel Galaxy

    This area near the core of the Pinwheel Galaxy turns out to be bursting with newborn stars, some only a few million years old. And there are about 60 supernova remnants, showing the full stellar life-cycle. [Hubble via Wired]
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    A Supernova Blossoms In A Neighboring Galaxy, And The Shockwave Is Aimed At Earth

    See the blue halo around this supernova? It's blue-shifted because of the Doppler effect, which means it's heading straight for us. And the supernova E0102, in the Small Magellanic Cloud, is only 190,000 light years away. Brace for impact! More »
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    The Most Efficient Particle Accelerator Known To Humanity

    Chinese astronomers observed this supernova, RCW 86, in the year 185 A.D. But it's still pumping out cosmic rays, and a new image shows how supernova remnants like this one are the Milky Way's "super-efficient particle accelerators." [Chandra Observatory]
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    Massive Explosion Culprit Revealed: A Rogue Supernova

    A decade after astronomers first spotted a huge, bright light source in the nearby Circinus galaxy, they've finally identified its source: a supernova, dubbed SN 1996cr. It took coordinating data from 18 different telescopes, via the Internet, to identify that nova, a milestone in the new era of "Internet astronomy." More »
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    Brightest Supernova In History Has Turned To Velvety Goodness

    This supernova dominated our skies for weeks, a thousand years ago. It was brighter than Venus and visible during the day, and observers documented it in China, Japan, Europe and the Arab world. We now know that the brightest supernova on record, SN 1006c, was caused by a white dwarf star that gained mass from a companion star until it gorged itself and exploded. Click through for some more mind-blowing images of SN1006c, including some super-colorful X-ray images. More »
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    Listen To Pink Floyd And Watch The Lovely Aftermath Of Stellar Destruction

    It takes a lot of imaging power to capture the awesome aftermath of a star committing suicide. To get this freaktastic death blossom pic of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, it took three of NASA's Great Observatories, using three different light wavebands. The red is from the Spitzer Space Telescope's infrared data, the yellow is visible data from the Hubble Space Telescope, and the green and blue are X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Cassiopeia went nova 11,300 years ago, but the nova itself would have been visible from Earth just 300 years ago. Image by AP/HO/NASA
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    Someone Has Stolen Our Supernovas

    Here's the youngest known supernova in our galaxy, a mere 140 years old. The unassumingly named G1.9+0.3 is at least 200 years younger than the previous youngest known supernova, and it grew by 16 percent over just the last 22 years. NASA's Chandra Observatory was able to confirm North Carolina State University astrophysicist Stephen Reynolds' suspicion that this was a new supernova. But there's just one problem: NASA officials admitted in a teleconference: our galaxy is still missing about 50 supernovas. Who took them? More »
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    The Biggest Space Explosions Ever Recorded

    You can still see the shock wave from the explosion of supernova Cassiopeia A in this color-enhanced image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The blue glow around the dead star is the "forward shock," material blasted with energy by the shock wave when the star blew. Click through for a gallery of the biggest space detonations ever, including a deep-space eruption that released thousands of suns' worth of energy in a few seconds. More »