Featured Image Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble
One jaw-dropping video shared by NASA shows the moment where the Hubble Space Telescope captures a star brightly 'self-detonating', and it's something you definitely won't want to miss.
The advanced technology space agencies like NASA have at their disposal means that we can often capture staggering events occurring far beyond our reach, and see into the outer reaches of the universe often millions of light-years away.
Apparatus like the James Webb and Hubble Telescopes have managed to capture improbable bodies of water, the trajectory of an asteroid that could threaten Earth, and even a mysterious object that some have taken as a sign of impending alien invasion.
However, one of the most visually impressive recent captures though involves the 'self-detonation' of a star, as a time-lapse allows us to view this happening in 'real time', even though it actually occurred far before any humans were actually around.
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As reported by Indy100, the Hubble Space Telescope managed to spot an ongoing supernova in the spiral galaxy NGC 2525, which is located roughly 71 million light-years away.
"Hubble began observing SN 2018gv in February 2018, after the supernova was first detected by amateur astronomer Koichi Itagaki a few weeks earlier in mid-January," NASA's official statement explains.
"Hubble astronomers were using the supernova as part of a program to precisely measure the expansion rate of the universe — a key value in understanding the physical underpinnings of the cosmos."
While the time-lapse that NASA has shared occurs across a few seconds, the footage was actually captured between February 2018 and February 2019, showing quite how long it takes for a supernova like this to burn out from its brightest point.
As it goes through the process of the supernova it initially shines far brighter than any other star within NGC2525's spiral arms, but it shortly fades into relative obscurity by the end of the 'self-detonation' process, becoming near-imperceptible.
"Just wow, it's so amazing how gigantic our universe is," writes one commenter who is clearly stunned by the images shared by Hubble, whereas another makes a staggering observation that will blow your mind:
"That supernova exploded while dinosaurs were walking on Earth, and we see it now, which is fascinating," the comment explains, and that shows quite how far away this particular supernova occurred, to the point where it has taken millions of years for the light to reach us on Earth.
"The supernova serves as a milepost maker to measure galaxy distances, a fundamental value needed for measuring the expansion of space," explains NASA, so the sheer amount of time that it has taken for the light to reach us remains important to scientific research into the universe's limits.
