In November 1572 a supernova explosion was observed in the direction of the constellation of Cassiopeia, and its most famous observer was Tycho Brahe, one of the founders of modern observational astronomy. The explosion produced an expanding cloud of superhot gas, a supernova remnant which was rediscovered in 1952 by British radioastronomers, confirmed by visible photographs from Mount Palomar observatory, California, in the 1960’s, and a spectacular image was taken in X-rays by the Chandra satellite observatory in 2002. Astronomers use supernova remnants to explore high energy physics in interstellar space.

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