Supernova and Remnant SN1AX

This animation shows a very dense white dwarf star devouring a much larger, but less massive, red star. The matter swirls into the white dwarf via an accretion disk. The white dwarf reaches a critical mass and undergoes a thermonuclear explosion that destroys the white dwarf and flings the red star into space. Some debris from the white dwarf travels at very high speed to our region of the Milky Way and is detected by telescopes on Earth.