September 13, 1999
Another year older means another lap aboard a world spinning through the void at impossible speed.
Supernova Remnant N132D in X-Rays
Birthday · September 13, 1999
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APOD published September 13, 1999. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Thousands of years after a star explodes, an expanding remnant may still glow brightly. Such is the case with N132D, a supernova remnant located in the neighboring Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy. The expanding shell from this explosion now spans 80 light-years and has swept up about 600 Suns worth of mass. The bright regions surrounding the lower right of this X-ray image result from a collision with an even more massive molecular cloud. Towards the upper left, the supernova remnant expands more rapidly into less dense region of space. This image is one of the first ever taken with the High Resolution Camera onboard the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory, and records details being analyzed for the first time.