Nasa solves mystery of cosmic graveyard in nearby galaxy
Technology
The strange area of space likely saw more supernovas than initially believed
(Web Desk) - About 160,000 light-years away from Earth, deep inside the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighbor galaxy of our Milky Way, lies a cemetery.
Known as the supernova remnant 30 Doradus B (or 30 Dor B), it's the exploded remains of a star that went supernova some 5,000 years ago.
But on close inspection, the grave has features no single supernova could explain. And now, NASA believes it has solved the mystery of this strange region of space.
New research suggests at least one other massive star has exploded in 30 Dor B over the last 10,000 years or more, according to observations made by NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory, the Blanco 4-meter telescope in Chile, the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope and Hubble.
In the research, astronomers discovered a shell of X-Rays rippling out from the remnant that stretches 130 light-years across and evidence of a pulsar — a husk of a dead star that throws off jets of particles as it spins.
The shell is far too big to have come from the one supernova that they knew made 30 Dor B 5,000 years ago, suggesting several supernovas have happened within the region in the past.
