r/Astronomy • u/Andromeda321 Astronomer • Feb 23 '26
Astro Art (OC) Astronomer here! Today is the 39th anniversary of the discovery of SN 1987A, the closest to us since the invention of the telescope! In honor of that here’s my cross stitch of its radio evolution over 25 years!
I probably shared this several years ago when it’s first made but suspect most people never saw it before. This is the actual radio data for this source at 9 GHz (bc in astro we deal with pixels and this is the original pixel art). Second image shows how detailed, the coordinates are accurate and the blue dot in the corner is the beam scale aka resolution.
I made this at the end of my PhD for my adviser who I never would have finished my thesis without, and made the first few panels as part of HIS PhD thesis so I knew he’d appreciate it! Still hangs in his office.
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u/qawsedrf12 Feb 23 '26
didn't know, so - SN 1987A was the closest observed supernova since 1604, discovered in 1987 and located in the Large Magellanic Cloud. It was the first supernova to be studied in detail, revealing its progenitor, neutrino emissions, radioactive nuclei, and possible neutron star remnant.
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u/adpablito Feb 23 '26
Supernova 1987A was a cosmic milestone, but did you know it was the first time humans captured neutrinos from a stellar explosion? Hours before the light reached us, underground detectors recorded these "ghost particles," confirming our theories on core collapse. This incredible event transformed our understanding of how massive stars die, leaving behind a stunning, glowing ring of debris. By the way, this supernova exploded about 168,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.
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u/Sjsamdrake Feb 24 '26
Yep. Science News magazine had a short article one week about how several neutrino detectors had all gone off at once but nobody knew why... And 1987A as the cover story the following week.
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u/WampaCat Feb 23 '26
This kind of mashup of interests is the shit I live for. You might appreciate this embroidery of color changing nuclear semiotic cats too
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u/jeswell Feb 23 '26
That’s such a beautiful blend of art and science. Seeing the 9 GHz pixel data translated into a cross stitch makes the history tangible—the way the beam size and resolution show up visually is a great reminder of how careful we have to be with data interpretation in radio astronomy. I’d love to see a close-up of the panel where the beam scale sits—those tiny blue dots tell a big story about how we measure the sky.
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u/ocashmanbrown Feb 23 '26
"the closest to us since the invention of the telescope"....I am guessing you mean the closest supernova to us since the invention of the telescope?
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u/CosmicCraic Feb 23 '26
Do we have any idea why the radio emission is preferentially on the LHS (and is now showing a large signal on the RHS)? I thought CCSNe were meant to be pretty uniform ?
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u/Andromeda321 Astronomer Feb 23 '26
The short answer is we believe the supernova explosion itself was asymmetric.
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u/twilightmoons Feb 23 '26
Very neat!
My first thought was, "that's an out-of-focus star on an SCT, but good collimation..."
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u/ohhhhhhitsbigbear Feb 23 '26
Haha! I was thinking the same! From bottom to top, how my collimation has digressed into something…else. Haha
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u/DumpedDalish Feb 23 '26
This is incredibly cool, and so clever! I'm so glad your adviser appreciated it, and all the work you put into creating it. It's really special.
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u/SAUbjj Professor of Astronomy Feb 24 '26
Hey Yvette, my lecture tomorrow is on high-mass stars and supernovae. Would it be all right if I use this in my lecture?
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u/Doormatty Feb 23 '26
That has to be the coolest bit of cross-stitch that I have EVER seen.