Your Eyes In Space Open the simulation

Supernova

SNR G1.9+0.3

Supernova remnant

The shock wave of a supernova expanding at thousands of kilometres per second: it sweeps up and heats the interstellar gas and shines in radio waves.

TypeSupernova
ConstellationSagittarius
Distance8,500 pc (27.7 thousand ly)
Diameter12.1 ly
TypeShell type
Radio flux (1 GHz)0.6 Jy
SourceGreen's SNR Catalogue
Right ascension (J2000)17h 48m 45.0s
Declination (J2000)−27° 10′ 00″

In the sky

Visible from the whole Southern Hemisphere and north to latitude 63° N. South of latitude 63° S it never sets. It stands highest at midnight in June, the best time to observe it.

Through a telescope from Earth

Light's journey

The light you see tonight set out 28 thousand years ago. At that time Homo sapiens was spreading out of Africa; there was no farming yet. At the speed of Voyager 1, the fastest craft leaving the Solar System (16.9 km per second), the trip would take 492 million years.

Open in the simulation