Skip to main content

Hubble captures the site of an epic supernova, spotted by amateur astronomers

The eyes of the astronomy community are firmly on one event this week: The launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, the brand-new space observatory from NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency, which will be the world’s most powerful space telescope and the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. But that launch doesn’t mean that Hubble will be going away, as the older telescope will continue to be used to capture beautiful images of space in the visible light spectrum, while James Webb will focus primarily on capturing data in the infrared wavelength.

This week’s image from the Hubble Space Telescope is an example of the striking visuals it is still possible to capture with this 30-year-old technology. It shows the galaxy NGC 3568, a barred spiral galaxy (like our Milky Way) which is located around 57 million light-years away in the constellation of Centaurus.

Hubble Space Telescope captures a side-on view of NGC 3568, a barred spiral galaxy roughly 57 million light-years from the Milky Way in the constellation Centaurus.
In this image, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captures a side-on view of NGC 3568, a barred spiral galaxy roughly 57 million light-years from the Milky Way in the constellation Centaurus. In 2014 the light from a supernova explosion in NGC 3568 reached Earth – a sudden flare of light caused by the titanic explosion accompanying the death of a massive star. ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Sun

One distinct feature of this galaxy is that it was the location of a huge supernova, when a star reached the end of its life and exploded in a dramatic cosmic event. The light from this supernova reached Earth in 2014 and, unusually, was spotted not by professional astronomers but by a team of amateur astronomy enthusiasts who watch for supernovas from their backyards.

Recommended Videos

“While most astronomical discoveries are the work of teams of professional astronomers, this supernova was discovered by amateur astronomers who are part of the Backyard Observatory Supernova Search in New Zealand,” the European Space Agency writes. “Dedicated amateur astronomers often make intriguing discoveries — particularly of fleeting astronomical phenomena such as supernovae and comets.”

Georgina Torbet
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
Hubble images a pair of tiny dwarf galaxies
hubble dwarf galaxy pair ic3430 potw2431a 1

A new image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a small dwarf galaxy called IC 3430 that's located 45 million light-years away. This galaxy is classified as both a dwarf galaxy, because of its small size, and an elliptical galaxy, because of its form.

Elliptical galaxies are smooth and featureless, appearing blob-like and diffuse, unlike spiral galaxies, like our Milky Way, which have a distinct structure of a central hub and stretching spiral arms.

Read more
Hubble finds mysterious and elusive black hole
An international team of astronomers has used more than 500 images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope spanning two decades to detect seven fast-moving stars in the innermost region of Omega Centauri, the largest and brightest globular cluster in the sky. These stars provide compelling new evidence for the presence of an intermediate-mass black hole.

An international team of astronomers has used more than 500 images from the NASA/European Space Agency (ESA) Hubble Space Telescope spanning two decades to detect seven fast-moving stars in the innermost region of Omega Centauri, the largest and brightest globular cluster in the sky. These stars provide compelling new evidence of the presence of an intermediate-mass black hole. ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Häberle (MPIA)

There's something strange about black holes. Astronomers often find small black holes, which are between five times and 100 times the mass of the sun. And they often find huge supermassive black holes, which are hundreds of thousands of times the mass of the sun or even larger. But they almost never find black holes in between those two sizes.

Read more
Hubble takes first image since switching to new pointing mode
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope features the galaxy NGC 1546.

This NASA Hubble Space Telescope captured an image of the galaxy NGC 1546. NASA, ESA, STScI, David Thilker (JHU)

The Hubble Space Telescope has been through some troubles of late, and the way that it operates had to be changed recently to compensate for some degraded hardware. The telescope's three gyros, which help it to switch between different targets in the sky, have been experiencing issues, with one in particular frequently failing over recent months. NASA made the decision recently to change the way that Hubble points, and it now uses just one gyro at a time instead of all three in order to preserve the two remaining gyros for as long as possible.

Read more