Where In The Universe Challenge #28

By Nancy Atkinson - November 5, 2008 at 12:17 PM UTC | Observing
where-in-the-universe-28.jpg

Here's your image for this week's "Where In The Universe" challenge. Take a look and see if you can name where in the Universe this image is from. Give yourself extra points if you can name the spacecraft responsible for the image. The new way we're doing this challenge is that we'll provide the image today, but won't reveal the answer until tomorrow. This gives you a chance to mull over the image and provide your answer/guess in the comment section -- if you dare. Check back tomorrow on this same post (reminder: no new post tomorrow -- come back to this one) to see how you did!

UPDATE (11/6): The answer has now been posted below. If you haven't made your guess yet, no peeking before you do!!

I have to say, I am impressed with the knowledge of you UT readers! Great job! Yes, it is Tycho's Supernova Remnant, taken by the Chandra spacecraft. This is a bubble of hot gaseous supernova debris (green and red) inside a more rapidly moving shell of extremely high-energy electrons (blue). These features were created as the supersonic expansion of the debris into interstellar gas produced two shock waves - one that moves outward and accelerates particles to high energies, and another that moves backward and heats the stellar debris. The Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, took this image in 2005.

Learn more about the image

here.

And I'm sorry about the delay in posting the answer.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com