3.7 Feb. 27

This weeks image is actually a gif of supernova going off and lighting  a ring of debris around it on fire. Supernova 1987A was the brightest supernova ever recorded in modern times and has been watched closely, especially from 1994 to 2009, which is when these photos were taken. We can see the ring of debris, only slightly orange in the beginning of the gif, turn a bright yellow indicating a collision with the blast wave sent out in 1987. This ring was a light year wide before the explosion but now expands rapidly and at temperatures at millions of degrees kelvin. We are lucky because all of this is occurring right in our Milky Way's backyard in the large Large Magellanic cloud.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120227.html