John M. Blondin (North Carolina State University)

One of the most exciting astronomical events of the 20th century occurred in February 1987 when the first naked-eye supernova in centuries appeared in the Large Magellanic Cloud. In the past decade, three rings of glowing matter have developed around the explosion site. Astronomers have shown that the rings are made of material that surrounded the supernova's progenitor star. This visualization shows how that sort of cold, dark material can begin to glow when a supernova blast wave crashes into it.

Supernova shock

In the movie, you see a cross-section view of one possible glowing smoke ring. Imagine the supernova blast wave traveling from left to right; the circle on the right hand side represents a doughnut of cold gas being hit by the blast wave. The calculation shows that the blast wave plows into the ring like a blowtorch; much of the gas is blown away, while the rest is set aglow by the blast wave's powerful kinetic energy. The gas reaches temperatures in the millions of degrees, hot enough to glow in X-rays as well as ultraviolet, visible, and infrared light.

Charles Liu