Hubble captures tattered remnant of a supernova: Check out this spectacular image

The European Space Agency (ESA) on Monday shared a new image that shows the tattered remnant of a supernova. Captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, this object, called DEM L249, is thought to have been created by a Type 1a supernova during the death throes of a white dwarf. 

DEM L249 lies in the constellation Mensa and is within the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way only 160 000 light-years from Earth. The data in this Hubble image were gathered by the telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) instrument and were obtained during a systematic search of the LMC for the surviving companions of white dwarf stars which have gone supernova.

For the unversed, a supernova is a titanic explosion that marks the end of the life of a dying star. It happens when there is a change in the core, or center, of a star.

A white dwarf is a star near the end of its life that has used most or all of its nuclear fuel and collapsed into a size similar to Earth. While they are usually stable, they can slowly accrue matter if they are part of a binary star system. This matter accretion continues until the white dwarf reaches a critical mass and undergoes a catastrophic supernova explosion.

📷 This image from the NASA/ESA @HUBBLE_space Telescope shows the remnant of a supernova. This object — known as DEM L249 — is thought to have been created by a Type 1a supernova during the death throes of a #WhiteDwarf star 👉 https://t.co/MvMvD4Rmpc pic.twitter.com/OalGKvLS47

— ESA (@esa) May 9, 2022