Thirteen years ago, astronomers witnessed the brightest stellar explosion seen from Earth since 1604. Now, they’re seeing fireworks generated as material from that explosion rams into and heats up a ring of gas surrounding the exploding star.
The spectacle, 169,000 light-years away in a galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud, may shed light on the nature of the original explosion, a supernova known as 1987A, as well as on its surroundings.