Image credit: NASA, ESA and Jesœs Ma­z Apellÿniz (Instituto de astrof­sica de Andaluc­a, Spain). Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin (ESA/Hubble), of the nebula NGC 6357 and the star cluster Pismis 24 inside.

A New Hope For Our Galaxy’s Next Supernova

Will it be Betelgeuse? Eta Carinae? Here are some candidates that are less popular, but perhaps more likely!

“Some of them burn slow and long, like red dwarfs. Others — blue giants — burn their due so fast they shine across great distances, and are easy to see. As they start to run out of fuel, they burn helium, grow even hotter, and explode in a supernova. Supernovas, they’re brighter than the brightest galaxies. They die, but everyone watches them go.” -Jodi Picoult

There are many ways to make a supernova, but one is by far the most common: when ultra-massive stars run out of fuel in their cores, which collapse.

Image credit: ESO/VVV Survey/D. Minniti. Acknowledgement: Ignacio Toledo, of NGC 6357 (the Lobster Nebula) in the infrared.

These massive stars, 8–20 times the mass of the Sun and up, are the bluest, hottest and shortest lived, found only in young, newly star-forming regions.

Image credit: ESO/IDA/Danish 1.5 m/ R. Gendler, U.G. Jørgensen, J. Skottfelt, K. Harpsøe, of Pismis 24 and NGC 6357 in visible light.

One such region, NGC 6357, is a huge nebula that radiates brightly in many different wavelengths.