Hubble sees galaxy with 3 supernovas

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, RELICS

In astronomy, the devil is in the details—as this image, taken by the NASA/ESA (European Space Agency) Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide-Field Camera 3, demonstrates.

The numerous fuzzy blobs and glowing shapes scattered across this image make up a galaxy cluster named RXC J0949.8+1707. Located to the upper right of the frame sits an especially beautiful and interesting barred spiral galaxy, seen face-on. In the past decade, astronomers peering at this galaxy have possibly discovered not one but three examples of a cosmic phenomenon known as a supernova, the magnificently bright explosion of a star nearing the end of its life.

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Source / Image Courtesy

The Hubble Space Telescope was used to capture galaxy NGC 1227, 240 million light-years from Earth. "The very rare and odd assemblage of stars (in the galaxy) has remained essentially unchanged for the past 10 billion years," according to the Hubble Space Telescope team.

The light from an exploding star in the Messier 82 (M82) galaxy was first photographed from Earth on January 22nd, 2013. The galaxy is ~12 million light years away so the explosion occurred about 12 million years ago.