Editor's Summary
4 December 2008
Tycho's supernova true to type Ia
Type Ia supernovae, used as distance indicators by cosmologists, result from thermonuclear explosions of white dwarf stars in binary systems. Important questions remain about how the explosions proceed and the nature of the progenitors. A nearby example would be a help in finding the answers; now we have one. The recent discovery of light echoing from Tycho Brahe's supernova of 1572, and now the determination of its optical spectrum, confirm the suspicion that 'SN 1572' is in fact a type Ia supernova in our cosmological backyard, the Milky Way. This puts stringent constraints on explosion models that can now be compared in detail to observations of both the explosion 436 years ago and the remnant as we see it today.
News and Views: Astrophysics: Echo from an ancient supernova
Light reflected off a dust cloud in the vicinity of the relic of Tycho Brahe's supernova, whose light first swept past Earth more than four centuries ago, literally sheds light on the nature of this cosmic explosion.
Andrea Pastorello & Ferdinando Patat
doi:10.1038/456587a
Letter: Tycho Brahe's 1572 supernova as a standard type Ia as revealed by its light-echo spectrum
Oliver Krause, Masaomi Tanaka, Tomonori Usuda, Takashi Hattori, Miwa Goto, Stephan Birkmann & Ken'ichi Nomoto
doi:10.1038/nature07608
