Paula Cleggett-Haleim

Headquarters, Washington, D.C. August 29, 1990

(Phone: 202/453-1547) 1 p.m. EDT

Randee Exler
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
(Phone: 301/286-7277)

Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
(Phone: 301/338-4514)

RELEASE: 90-117

HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE RESOLVES GASEOUS RING AROUND SUPERNOVA

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, a cooperative program with

the European Space Agency, has provided a dramatic new look at
the remnants of one of the most spectacular and unexpected
astronomical events of this century, the great supernova of 1987.

Observations made with the European Space Agency's Faint

Object Camera, on August 23-24, have provided, with unprecedented
sharpness and clarity down to .1 arc second, an intriguing view
of the supernova and its surrounding shell of stellar material.
The image, taken in visible light, reveals the details of the
circumstellar shell, whose characteristics previously had been
suggested by ground based observations and data from the
International Ultraviolet Explorer satellite.

This new image will provide important insights into the

evolution of massive stars and their catastrophic deaths as
supernova explosions.

The visible light image clearly shows an elliptical,

luminescent ring of gas about 1.3 light-years across surrounding
the still glowing center of the 1987 explosion. The ring is a
relic of the hydrogen-rich stellar envelope that was ejected in
the form of a gentle "stellar wind" by the progenitor, which was
a red supergiant star that existed an estimated 10,000 years
before the explosion took place.

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- 2 -
 This diffuse gas was subsequently swept and compressed into
a narrow, high-density shell by a high-speed stellar wind ejected
from the star when it evolved back to a blue supergiant stage.
The image suggests that the star was more efficient at
compressing gas along an equatorial plane, to create a ring-like
structure. Because the ring is inclined along the line-of-sight,
it has an elliptical appearance.

In the first few hours following the supernova blast the

ring was fully ionized and heated by a flood of ultraviolet
radiation. Three and a half years later, the ring still glows at
a temperature of more than 20,000 degrees Kelvin.

The slowly expanding ring is destined to be a relatively

short-lived structure. It will be overtaken by the swiftly
moving ejecta, travelling at 1/10th the speed of light, from the
supernova in a few more years. This collision will heat the ring
such that it will brightly glow in X-ray and ultraviolet light.
Within a few decades, the ring will be completely engulfed by
supernova debris which will be visible for centuries as a bright
supernova remnant.

The Space Telescope Science Institute is operated by the

Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for
NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, Md.
- end -

NASA news releases and other NASA information are available

electronically on CompuServe and GEnie, the General Electric
Network for Information Exchange. For information on CompuServe,
call 1-800-848-8199 and ask for representative 176. For
information on GEnie, call 1-800/638-9636.

Media representatives only can obtain photographs to

illustrate this news story by calling 202/453-8375.

Color: 90-HC-515 B & W: 90-H-556

TO: MDS/PRA Group
1615 L Street, N.W. - Suite 100
Washington, D.C. 20036

DATE & TIME: AUGUST 29, 1990

ORDERED BY: Edward Campion

NASA Headquarters/LMD
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20546 PHONE: 202/453-8400

PROJECT TITLE: Release No: 90-117

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MAIL DATE: AUGUST 30, 1990

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