The shredded remnants of the first supernova ever recorded by humans — which appeared in the sky more than 1,800 years ago and vanished within eight months — rise from the cosmic grave in a stunning new image from the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab.
Tinged blood red and swirling around an invisible center of mass, the ghostly clouds of gas are thought to be the last scraps of a star that exploded so brightly and violently that the blast was visible in Earth’s nighttime skies for nearly a year in A.D. 185.
Chinese astronomers who witnessed the blast dubbed it a “guest star,” as the explosion appeared suddenly where no star had been visible before and then slowly faded back into the cosmic background, according to NOIRLab (opens in new tab).
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