Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. Now the expanding debris from this tremendous stellar explosion is seen to be crashing into previously expelled material . The onset of this collision is shown by the arrow in the above picture as the yellow spot on the interior of the ring. As the supernova blast wave moves out, it shock-heats any gas it encounters, causing it to glow. Astronomers are thus hopeful that the blast wave will illuminate the interesting past of SN 1987a , and perhaps provide more clues about the origins of the mysterious rings .
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