{"id":222295,"date":"2026-01-07T23:50:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T23:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/222295\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T23:50:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T23:50:07","slug":"stunning-25-year-timelapse-shows-a-supernova-tearing-through-deep-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/222295\/","title":{"rendered":"Stunning 25-Year Timelapse Shows a Supernova Tearing Through Deep Space"},"content":{"rendered":"

A mind-blowing video shows the remnant of an ancient cosmic explosion bleeding out into the universe, pushing against gas and other material, over the span of more than two decades.<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s Chandra X-ray Observatory has captured 25 years\u2019 worth of observations of Kepler\u2019s supernova remnant<\/a>, revealing the glowing debris field as it grows over time. Astronomers gathered X-ray data from 2000 to 2025 to create a stunning timelapse video, allowing them to visualize how supernovas develop over time and creep into their surrounding environments.<\/p>\n

Ancient remains <\/p>\n

In the video, the ring of debris expands through five datasets captured in 2000, 2004, 2006, 2014, and 2025. The debris field glows in X-ray light, appearing as a bright neon bubble that\u2019s slowly expanding with time. As it grows, it crashes into material that\u2019s already been tossed into deep space.<\/p>\n

The remnant is located in the Milky Way galaxy, about 17,000 light-years from Earth, close enough for astronomers to observe its evolution in real time.<\/p>\n

By observing the supernova remnant, researchers have determined that the debris is traveling at about 13.8 million miles per hour, or 2% of the speed of light, toward the bottom of the image. The expanding bubble is traveling at a slower rate at the top of the image, at about 4 million miles per hour, or 0.5% of the speed of light. The significant difference\u00a0in speed may be due to denser gas at the top of the image, which slows the debris more than the thinner gas toward the bottom.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe plot of Kepler\u2019s story is just now beginning to unfold,\u201d Jessye Gassel, a graduate student at George Mason University in Virginia, who led the research, said in a statement<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s remarkable that we can watch as these remains from this shattered star crash into material already thrown out into space.\u201d<\/p>\n

Death of a star <\/p>\n

Kepler\u2019s supernova remnant was once a white dwarf star that exploded after exceeding its critical mass. It may have been triggered by an interaction with a red giant star, which caused the white dwarf to gain too much mass, thereby resulting in a massive thermonuclear explosion.<\/p>\n

German astronomer Johannes Kepler discovered the stellar explosion in 1604, and it remains the last supernova in the Milky Way visible to the naked eye. Kepler\u2019s supernova remnant is classified as a type Ia supernova, which serves as a crucial measurement for cosmic distances and tracking the expansion rate of the universe.<\/p>\n

\u201cSupernova explosions and the elements they hurl into space are the lifeblood of new stars and planets,\u201d Brian Williams, an astrophysicist at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and principal investigator of the new Chandra observations of Kepler, said in a statement. \u201cUnderstanding exactly how they behave is crucial to knowing our cosmic history.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mind-blowing video shows the remnant of an ancient cosmic explosion bleeding out into the universe, pushing against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[9248,3323,111,139,69,147,392,112857],"class_list":{"0":"post-222295","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-chandra","9":"tag-nasa","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-space","15":"tag-supernovae"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}