Back in 1987 the Large Magellanic Cloud lit up as a star went supernova and could be seen by earthlings with the naked eye. Now NASA has turned the James Webb Space Telescope in that direction and they’ve found something interesting hiding in the remnants of the stellar explosion.
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00:00 Back in 1987, the large Magellanic Cloud lit up as a star went supernova and could be seen
00:09 by Earthlings with the naked eye.
00:11 The whole thing happened just 168,000 light years away, extremely close by cosmic standards.
00:17 Now NASA has turned the James Webb Space Telescope in that direction and they've found something
00:22 interesting hiding in the remnants of the stellar explosion.
00:25 This is the highest resolution look at what's left of SN 1987A, showing the continually
00:31 evolving material and this, an unexpected neutron star.
00:35 Neutron stars are extremely dense collapse cores of extremely large stars, being only
00:39 a few miles wide yet having a density twice that of our sun.
00:43 Astronomers were able to identify such a small neutron star by the heavy argon and sulfur
00:47 radiation coming from that spot, elements stripped of their outer electrons via ionization.
00:53 With the researchers saying about the discovery, "The mystery over whether a neutron star
00:57 is hiding in the dust has lasted for more than 30 years and it is exciting that we have
01:02 solved it."
01:03 With the researchers adding that this is some of the first chronological evidence to partially
01:07 confirm neutron star theory models.
01:10 [music]