What primarily causes supernova remnants like SN 1987A to display bright rings instead of perfect spheres?
Answer
Interaction of the shockwave with pre-existing, non-spherically distributed stellar material shed before the death.
The observed ring shape arises because the outward-moving spherical shockwave encounters denser, non-uniform material that the progenitor star ejected prior to its final explosion. Where this material is densest, the shockwave excites the gas most intensely, causing it to glow brightly.
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