Supernova remnant 1987A

Supernova remnant SNR1987A is located 166 000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The light from the stellar explosion arrived at Earth in 1987, and has since provided astronomers with a natural laboratory to monitor how the brightness of a supernova changes over time.

Dominating this Hubble Space Telescope view of the remnant are two glowing loops and a very bright ring of shocked hotspots surrounding the location of the now-exploded central star. The material making up these loops and rings was probably ejected from the star earlier in its history and is now being illuminated by the supernova and its shockwave.

The titanium-44 detected by Integral is powering only the innermost part of the remnant.

Astronomers expect a neutron star to have been left after the explosion, but no definitive evidence for it has yet been found.

The field of view is about 25 x 25 arcseconds.