The Mysterious Rings of Supernova 1987a
What's causing those odd rings in supernova 1987a? In 1987, the brightest supernova in recent history occurred in the Large Magellanic Clouds . At the center of the picture is an object central to the remains of the violent stellar explosion . When the Hubble Space Telescope was pointed at the supernova remnant in 1994, however, curious rings were discovered . The origins of these rings still remains a mystery. Speculation into the cause of the rings includes beamed jets emanating from a dense star left over from the supernova, and a superposition of two stellar winds ionized by the supernova explosion.