Jun 17 2019
When extremely huge stars expire toward the end of their short lives, they illuminate the cosmos with bright, explosive bursts of material and light called supernovae.
(Image credit: NASA)
A supernova event is extremely energetic and acutely luminous such that it creates what appears to be an exceptionally bright new star that gradually loses its brightness in due course.
These exploding stars illuminate so brightly when they are first formed that they can be noticed from far-off with the help of telescopes such as the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The focus of this image, a spiral galaxy called NGC 4051—located around 45 million light-years from Earth—has been home to multiple supernovae in the past.
The first one was identified in 1983 (SN 1983I), the second in 2003 (SN 2003ie), and the latest in 2010 (SN 2010br). These explosive events were found to be scattered all over the center and spiral arms of NGC 4051.
SN 2010br and SN 1983I were both classified as Type Ic supernovae. This kind of supernova is caused as a result of the core collapse of a massive star that has lost its outer layer of helium and hydrogen, either by mass transfer to a companion star or through winds. Due to this, Type Ic, as well as Type Ib, supernovae are at times known as stripped core-collapse supernovae.
NGC 4501 is located in the southern part of a cluster of galaxies called the Ursa Major I Cluster. This cluster is particularly abundant in spirals like NGC 4051 and is a subset of the larger Virgo Supercluster, which is also home to the Milky Way.