2023-10-29 17:00:00
Tonight, NASA will launch a rocket to study a 20,000 year old supernova. Swan Lace has a lot to teach us about the formation of our galaxies.
A rocket equipped with special instruments for imaging and spectroscopy will make a brief trip into space to try to recover as much data as possible on a supernova remnant in the constellation Cygnus. Its target, a massive cloud of dust and gas known as the Veil Nebula, the visible part of Swan Lacewas created after a star exploded about 20,000 years ago and is still growing.
Tonight, NASA will launch a rocket to study a 20,000 year old supernova
NASA will launch its mission at 4:35 a.m. French time this Monday, October 30, from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The instrument Integral Field Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Experiment (INFUSE) will observe the Veil Nebula for just a few minutes, capturing ultraviolet light to reveal gases reaching temperatures between 50,000 and 300,000°C. It should evolve at an altitude of around 240 km before descending, by parachute, to Earth.
The Swan Laces are located approximately 2,600 light years away, they were formed following the collapse of a star that would have been 20 times larger than our Sun. Since the aftermath of this event is still ongoing, with the cloud expanding at the breakneck speed of 1.5 million kilometers per hour, it is a good candidate for studying how supernovae affect the formation of new solar systems. “Supernovae like the one that created Swan Lace have a huge impact on galaxy formation,” explained Brian Fleming, principal investigator of the INFUSE mission.
Swan Lace has a lot to teach us about the formation of our galaxies
“INFUSE will observe how the supernova injects energy into the Milky Way by catching the light emitted as the wave crashes into pockets of cold gas floating around the galaxy,” explained Brian Fleming. Once INFUSE returns to the farm and its data has been recovered, the team plans to prepare everything to launch a new, similar mission.
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