Cosmic Light Echo from Supernova Seen Bouncing Off Giant Dust Cloud

Space has its own version of an echo. It’s not made with sound but with light, and occurs when light bounces off dust clouds.

Light from a supernova explosion in the nearby starburst galaxy M82 is reverberating off a huge dust cloud in interstellar space. The supernova, called SN 2014J, occurred at the upper right of M82, and is marked by an “X.” The supernova was discovered on Jan. 21, 2014.

The inset images at top reveal an expanding shell of light from the stellar explosion sweeping through interstellar space, called a “light echo.” The images were taken 10 months to nearly two years after the violent event (Nov. 6, 2014 to Oct. 12, 2016). The light is bouncing off a giant dust cloud that extends 300 to 1,600 light-years from the supernova and is being reflected toward Earth.
 

This video sequence takes the viewer into the nearby starburst galaxy M82, where a shell of light surrounding an exploding star is moving through interstellar space.The light was emitted from supernova SN 2014J, which was first observed in January 2014. Nearly three years later, light from the blast can still be seen reverberating off of interstellar dust clouds — an effect called a light echo.

Credits: NASA, ESA, G. Bacon, J. DePasquale, and Z. Levay (STScI)
Acknowledgment: Y. Yang (Texas A&M/Weizmann Institute of Science)  via About Space Only

Contacts and sources:
Donna Weaver / Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland

Yi Yang
Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel