Thursday

At distances of 50 and 62 kpc, supernova (SN) and supernova remanets (SNRs) in Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are well resolved spatially, providing ideal site to study how the SNe and SNRs evolve in time, and how they impact on ambient interstellar medium (ISM).

SN 1987A exploded in the Large Magellanic Cloud, and it is the nearest SN explosion detected in 400 years. Due to its close proximity, SN 1987A has provided astronomers great opportunities to study how a SN evolve in time in unprecedented detail. That includes recent successful ALMA observations, such as, first imaging confirmation of SN forming dust in ejecta, and the first detection of clumps in the ejecta of SN 1987A, tracing gas turbulence produced by shocks immediately after the SN explosion. I also describe prospects of up-coming JWST observations of SN 1987A.

With a known distance, and existing X-ray, radio, optical and infrared surveys of the entire galaxy, the Small Magellanic Cloud is an ideal site for investigating how SNR shocks can impact on dust in ambient ISM. We searched for dust in the SMC SNRs, using the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Herschel Space Observatory. In the SMC, 27 SNRs are known, and 7 are detected by Spitzer or Herschel with possible three more detections. Majority of SNRs are far fainter than the brightness predicted by shock models. This implies either dust grains have been destroyed by SNRs, or model overpredict brightness, hence, overestimating the mass of dust grains being destroyed by SN shocks.