Above Quarai

A sandstone wall of the deserted mission church at Quarai is illumined by remnants of a massive supernova explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Captured in several exposures by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, these images were made after astronomers witnessed the explosion of supernova 1987A. This self-destructing star is propelling clouds of gas and debris across its own galaxy, igniting other stellar objects and creating a breeding ground for new stars. (PR99-04: Hubble Heritage Team, NASA, STScI, AURA.)

Quarai was part of a chain of native settlements in what is now central New Mexico, zealously occupied by conquistadors and Franciscan missionaries in the early 1600's. Their purpose was to bring Christianity to the Indians while protecting the route to nearby salt deposits Under direction of the Franciscans, a large church and convento were constructed with Indian labor. . Drought, famine and Apache raids led to abandonment in the 1670's. The Salinas missions fell into ruin and were never rebuilt.

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