Free Astronomy Magazine January-February 2018

JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2018 L ight from a supernova explosion in the nearby starburst galaxy M82 is reverberating off a huge dust cloud in interstellar space. The su- pernova, called SN 2014J, occurred at the upper right of M82, and is marked by an “X.” The supernova was discovered on Jan. 21, 2014. The inset images at top reveal an expanding shell of light from the stellar explosion sweeping through interstellar space, called a “light echo.” The images were taken 10 months to nearly two years after the violent event (Nov. 6, 2014 to Oct. 12, 2016). The light is bouncing off a giant dust cloud that extends 300 to 1,600 light-years from the supernova and is being reflected toward Earth. The image of M82 reveals a bright blue disk, webs of shredded clouds, and fiery-looking plumes of glow- ing hydrogen blasting out of its central regions. [NASA, ESA, and Y. Yang (Texas A&M University and Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel)] T his video sequence takes the viewer into the nearby starburst galaxy M82, where a shell of light surrounding an exploding star is moving through interstellar space. [NASA, ESA, G. Bacon, J. De- Pasquale, and Z. Levay (STScI) ]