Life's Building Blocks Can Survive a Supernova

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Here's a cool photograph of supernova remnant N132D. It's actually a composite image, made up of pictures gathered by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope. The remnant is located approximately 163,000 light-years away in the neighbouring galaxy: the Large Magellanic Cloud.

An interesting discovery in this research is that one of life's building blocks, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), seem to survive the supernova explosion. These carbon and hydrogen compounds are true space survivors; they're found in comets, in star-forming regions and planetary disks, and now... in supernovae.

Chandra News Release

Fraser Cain

Fraser Cain

Fraser Cain is the publisher of Universe Today, founding the website in March 1999. He's also the co-host of Astronomy Cast.