                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                2026 June 18
   A composite image shows a field of stars on a dark background, together
                       X-rays in blue and radio in red

                Possible Supernova Remnant in Galactic Center
        Image Credit & Copyright: X-ray: NASA/CXC/UCLA/Z. Zhu et al.;
    ESA/XMM-Newton; Optical: PanSTARRS; Radio: MeerKAT; Image Processing:
                   NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and P. Edmonds
             Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)

   Explanation: Do you see that blue blob to the lower right of the image
   center? Astronomers think that it shows where a massive star exploded
   as a supernova whose light reached Earth 1,700 years ago. The image
   combines optical data from the PanSTARRS telescopes in Hawaii
   (background stars in red, green, and blue), radio from the MeerKAT
   telescope in South Africa (large red cloud) and X-rays from NASA's
   Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton (shown in blue). The
   large cloud is a star forming region called Sagittarius C, which is
   approximately 50 light-years in extent and about 26,000 light-years
   from Earth. It is located only about 260 light-years from the
   supermassive black hole in the center of the Galaxy (off to the left of
   the image). If the blue blob is confirmed to be a supernova remnant, it
   would be one of the closest ever discovered to the Galactic Center. In
   this dense region, the deaths of massive stars are connected to the
   birth of new stars through gas and magnetic fields in a complex way.

                         Tomorrow's picture: Vincent
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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                             & Michigan Tech. U.

