Supernova Remnants in Astronomy Images of the Week

Every week, on Space Gaze Programwe show two astronomical images that stood out last week. This week, the images were chosen by two very special children from the Nicolinha e Kids Online Science Club. Check them out:

Witch's Broom Nebula

The image chosen by Heloisa Pascoal de Souza A student from the 2nd year of the Firmino Tibúrcio da Costa School in São Paulo, SP, shows the Witch's Broom Nebula, also known as NGC 6960 or “Serpent's Filament”, a remnant of the supernova that exploded in 11,000 BC. The large-scale supernova that gave rise to this object left a cloud of debris that spread through space at an impressive speed. The Witch's Broom Nebula is one of the many objects that form the Vela Nebula, and is classified as a “shell” type supernova remnant, that is, a shell of expanding gas and dust. Its elongated and irregular shape resembles a witch's broom, hence its popular name.

Original in: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1804/ngc6960_Pugh_2000.jpg

The image chosen by Hector Collyer Lebida 3rd grader at Red House School in Santos, SP, presents us with another supernova remnant, Cassiopeia A, a nebula formed by the remains of a star that exploded about 300 years ago. This fantastic record was composed from images from the Chandra Space Telescope and NuSTAR, NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array. Both operate in the X-ray range, but NuSTAR shows in blue the high-energy X-rays, coming from the radioactive material ejected from the star. Chandra, on the other hand, completes the image with red, yellow and green, representing the emissions of low-energy X-rays from the non-radioactive, but superheated material. Cassiopeia A is an object of fundamental importance in the study of stellar evolution, the properties of supernova remnants and the physics of cosmic rays.

Original in: https://science.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/nustar140219a-1.jpg

Who chose

Heloísa and Heitor are members of the Nicolinha & Kids Online Science Club, which brings together boys and girls from all over Brazil to learn more about astronomy and other sciences. During the month of June, the month of Asteroid Day, they participated in a “creative challenge” proposed by the club: they chose an asteroid and prepared a post for Instagram, with a summary of the chosen object and a picture of the child and the asteroid. Their posts were chosen as the most creative among the 30 published, with Heitor posting about Vesta, the largest asteroid in the Solar System, and Heloísa posting about Eros. Initiatives like this are highly valued by Asteroid Day, as they are a way to popularize science about these small bodies in the Solar System.

(Instagram link: https://www.instagram.com/p/C8pIV4AuUxc/)

(Instagram link: