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IAUS 331: Supernova 1987A thirty years later

Nature Astronomy volume 1, Article number: 0100 (2017) Cite this article

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First the neutrinos arrived, then the burst of light: messengers of a cataclysmic event in the galaxy next door. Alak Ray recounts IAUS 331, a conference that celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the supernova of a lifetime, SN1987A, and explored the critical role of asymmetry in the explosions, surroundings and initial conditions.

To bring the meeting participants up to date with the current state of the SN1987A remnant, Mikako Matsuura related details of high-angular-resolution (0.05–0.30˝) ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) observations. These data revealed CO, SiO and SO molecules, and HCO+ in the remnant — the latter indicating a mixing of the star's hydrogen and carbon–oxygen zones during the explosion. Phil Cigan presented a corresponding view of the resolved spatial distribution of the dust and molecules in the remnant for the first time. The observed dust mass is ∼0.8 M⊙, corroborating earlier Herschel observations1. The ejecta emission is thermal and cold (∼23 K), cooler than the dust in the circumstellar ring.

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Figure 1: A multi-wavelength view of SN1987A from recent observations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Alak Ray is at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Homi Bhabha Road, Mumbai 400005, India.,

    Alak Ray

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Correspondence to Alak Ray.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Video 1 caption. (PDF 49 kb)

Supplementary Video 1

A timelapse of very-long baseline interferometry images of supernova SN1986J. (MPG 2634 kb)

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Ray, A. IAUS 331: Supernova 1987A thirty years later. Nat Astron 1, 0100 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-017-0100

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