Supernova Pictures

Here are some cool supernova pictures. You can make any of these images into your computer desktop wallpaper. Just click an image to enlarge it, and then right-click and choose “Set as Desktop Background”.

This is an image of a supernova remnant N132D, as photographed by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. You can see how the shockwave of the supernova is colliding with the surrounding gas and dust in the nebula.

Here’s an image of supernovae seen by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Astronomers found many supernovae like this to determine that the expansion of the Universe is actually accelerating.

This is an image of an expanding shell of hot gas blasting away from a supernova that exploded in 1987. This photo was taken by Hubble in 1994, 7 years after the supernova.

This is a small portion of the Cygnus loop supernova remnant, photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope. This picture was taken in 1991.

Astronomer Johannes Kepler recorded the brightening of a star in the sky in 1604. We now know that this was a supernova exploding in the sky. Here’s a photo of the supernova remnant, taken 400 years after the supernova exploded.

We’ve written many articles about supernovae for Universe Today. Here’s an article about a supernova that exploded in slow motion. And here’s an article about how supernovae might have generated dust in the early Universe.

If you’d like more info on supernovae, check out Hubblesite’s News Releases on Supernova, and here’s a link to the NASA Science Homepage: Supernova for recent stories and images.

We’ve done many episodes of Astronomy Cast about stars. Listen here, Episode 12: Where Do Baby Stars Come From?