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Although RCW 86 has been imaged many times before — notably by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Dark Energy Camera — new data from NASA's Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) has delivered a fresh perspective. Launched in 2021, IXPE captures X-ray data and high-energy, short-wavelength light with an all-new level of sensitivity to examine the most extreme objects in the universe, including supernova remnants. IXPE was put to work on RCW 86 because of the remnant's irregular shape and the strange way it's expanding. Earlier observations from Chandra suggested that the supernova spread into a low-density "cavity," allowing it...

Explanation: In 185 AD, Chinese astronomers recorded the appearance of a new star in the Nanmen asterism. That part of the sky is identified with Alpha and Beta Centauri on modern star charts. The new star was visible to the naked-eye for months, and is now thought to be the earliest recorded supernova. This deep telescopic view reveals the wispy outlines of emission nebula RCW 86, just visible against the starry background, understood to be the remnant of that stellar explosion. Captured by the wide-field Dark Energy Camera operating at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, the image traces the...

Explanation: In 185 AD, Chinese astronomers recorded the appearance of a new star in the Nanmen asterism - a part of the sky identified with Alpha and Beta Centauri on modern star charts. The new star was visible for months and is thought to be the earliest recorded supernova. This multiwavelength composite image from orbiting telescopes of the 21st century, XMM-Newton and Chandra in X-rays, and Spitzer and WISE in infrared, show supernova remnant RCW 86, understood to be the remnant of that stellar explosion. The false-color view shows interstellar gas heated by the expanding supernova shock wave at X-ray...