Simulated Supernova Animation (IMAGE)
Caption
This simulation showcases the dynamic universe as NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could see it over the course of its five-year primary mission. The gif sparkles with synthetic supernovae from observations of the OpenUniverse simulated universe taken every five days (similar to the expected cadence of Roman’s High-Latitude Time-Domain Survey, which OpenUniverse simulates in its entirety). On top of the static sky of stars in the Milky Way and other galaxies, more than a million exploding stars flare into visibility and then slowly fade away. To highlight the dynamic physics happening and for visibility at this scale, the true brightness of each transient event has been magnified by a factor of 10,000 and no background light has been added to the simulated images. The video begins with Roman’s full field of view, which represents a single pointing of Roman’s camera, and then zooms into one square.
Credit
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and M. Troxel
Usage Restrictions
No restrictions.
License
Public Domain