A strange supernova remnant first appeared as a “guest star” seen in 1181 by sky watchers in China and Japan
An artist’s concept of a supernova remnant called Pa 30—the dandelion-shaped debris from a thermonuclear cosmic explosion that was witnessed from Earth in the year 1181.Astronomers’ best view yet of the aftermath of a “guest star” supernova seen in 12th-century China and Japan has revealed one of the strangest objects in the heavens. It consists of hundreds of spectacular filaments of gas and dust arranged like the seeds of a dandelion around a “zombie” white dwarf.
Because the amount of detonating material is roughly the same for every type Ia supernova, these cosmic cataclysms all shine with a similar brightness and can be seen far beyond their host galaxy. This allows astronomers to use them as “standard candles” to estimate vast cosmic distances. “This remnant allows us to study the evolution of the central star and of the ejecta, about 1,000 years after the explosion and in our own backyard,” she says., near the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Spectrographs are workhorses of astronomy that split light into its constituent wavelengths, or colors, allowing observers to discern the chemical compositions and even the subtle motions of cosmic structures.
But Cunningham says that, against expectations, these stellar winds seem not to be significantly sculpting the filaments. The researchers also saw hints of an asymmetry in the explosion, with more filaments pointing away from Earth than pointing toward it.
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