NASA Logo

NTRS

NTRS - NASA Technical Reports Server

Collections About News Help Login
Back to Results
Observing Supernova 1987A with the Refurbished Hubble Space TelescopeThe young remnant of supernova 1987A (SN 1987A) offers an unprecedented glimpse into the hydrodynamics and kinetics of fast astrophysical shocks. We have been monitoring SN 1987A with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) since it was launched. The recent repair of the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) allows us to compare observations in 2004, just before its demise, with those in 2010, shortly after its resuscitation by NASA astronauts. We find that the Ly-alpha and H-alpha lines from shock emission continue to brighten, while their maximum velocities continue to decrease. We report evidence for nearly coherent, resonant scattering of Lya photons (to blueshifts approximately -12,000 km /s) from hotspots on the equatorial ring. We also report emission to the red of Ly-alpha that we attribute to N v lambda lambda 1239,1243 Angstrom line emission. These lines are detectable because, unlike hydrogen atoms, N4+ ions emit hundreds of photons before they are ionized. The profiles of the N v lines differ markedly from that of H-alpha. We attribute this to scattering of N4+ ions by magnetic fields in the ionized plasma. Thus, N v emission provides a unique probe of the isotropization zone of the collisionless shock. Observations with the recently installed Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) will enable us to observe the N v lambda lambda 1239,1243 Angstrom line profiles with much higher signal-to-noise ratios than possible with STIS and may reveal lines of other highly ionized species (such as C IVlambda lambda 1548,1551 Angstrom) that will test our explanation for the N v emission
Document ID
20100024497
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Preprint (Draft being sent to journal)
Authors
France, Kevin (Colorado Univ. Boulder, CO, United States)
McCray, Richard (Colorado Univ. Boulder, CO, United States)
Heng, Kevin (Institute for Advanced Study Princeton, NJ, United States)
Kirshner, Robert P. (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Cambridge, MA, United States)
Challis, Peter (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Cambridge, MA, United States)
Bouchet, Patrice (Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique Gif-sur-Yvette, France)
Crotts, Arlin (Columbia Univ. New York, NY, United States)
Dwek, Eli (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Fransson, Claes (Stockholm Univ. Sweden)
Garnavich, Peter M. (Notre Dame Univ. IN, United States)
Larsson, Josefin (Stockholm Univ. Sweden)
Lundqvist, Peter (Stockholm Univ. Sweden)
Panagia, Nino (Space Telescope Science Inst. Baltimore, MD, United States)
Pun, Chun S. J. (Hong Kong Univ. Hong Kong)
Smith, Nathan (California Univ. Berkeley, CA, United States)
Sollerman, Jesper (Stockholm Univ. Sweden)
Sonneborn, George (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Stocke, John T. (Colorado Univ. Boulder, CO, United States)
Wheeler, J. Craig (Texas Univ. Austin, TX, United States)
Date Acquired
August 24, 2013
Publication Date
May 10, 2010
Subject Category
Astronomy
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: GO-11181
CONTRACT_GRANT: NAS5-26555
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Public Use Permitted.

Related Records

There are no records associated with this record.
No Preview Available