These images show the location of a suspected runaway companion star to a titanic supernova explosion witnessed in the year 1572 by the great Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe and other astronomers of that era. This discovery provides the first direct evidence supporting the long-held belief that Type Ia supernovae come from binary star systems containing a normal star and a burned-out white dwarf star. When the dwarf ultimately explodes by being overfueled by the companion star, the companion is slung away from the demised star. The Hubble Space Telescope played a key role by precisely measuring the surviving star's motion against the sky background.
[Right Image]
A Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Planetary Camera-2 image of a small section of sky containing the candidate star. The star is like our Sun except several billion years older. It is moving through space at three times the speed of the other stars in its neighborhood. Hubble's sharp view allowed for a measurement of the star's motion, based on images taken in 1999 and 2003.
[Left Image]
The Hubble view is superimposed on this wide-field view of the region enveloped by the expanding bubble of the supernova explosion; the bubble and candidate star are at approximately the same distance, 10,000 light-years. The star is noticeably offset from the geometric center of the bubble. The colors in the Chandra X-ray image of the hot bubble show different X-ray energies, with red, green, and blue representing low, medium, and high energies, respectively. (The image is cut off at the bottom because the southernmost region of the remnant fell outside the field of view of the Chandra camera.)
The results of this research, led by Pilar Ruiz-Lapuente of the University of Barcelona, are being published in the Oct. 28 British science journal Nature. The co-authors are Fernando Comeron (European Southern Observatory), Javier Mendez (University of Barcelona and Isaac Newton Group), Ramon Canal (University of Barcelona), Stephen Smartt (Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge), Alex Filippenko (University of California, Berkeley), Robert Kurucz (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), Ryan Chornock and Ryan Foley (University of California, Berkeley), Vallery Stanishev (Stockholm University), and Rodrigo Ibata (Observatory of Strasbourg).
Credits
NASA, ESA, CXO and P. Ruiz-Lapuente (University of Barcelona)| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Tycho Supernova, SN1572 |
| Object Description | Supernova Remnant |
| R.A. Position | 00h 25m 8.06s |
| Dec. Position | 64° 9' 55.69" |
| Constellation | Cassiopeia |
| Distance | 9,800 light-years (3 kiloparsecs) |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | This image was created from HST observations from the following proposal: P. Ruiz-Lapuente (Univ. of Barcelona), A. Burrows (Univ. of Arizona), R. Canal (Univ. of Barcelona), R. Chornock Univ. of California – Berkeley), F. Comeron (European Southern Obs.), A. Filippenko (Univ. of California – Berkeley), and R. Mignani (European Southern Obs.). The science team is composed of: P. Ruiz-Lapuente (Univ. of Barcelona), F. Comeron (European Southern Observatory), J. Mendez (Univ. of Barcelona and Isaac Newton Group), R. Canal (Univ. of Barcelona), S. Smartt (Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge), A. Filippenko (Univ. of California – Berkeley), R. Kurucz (Harvard-Smithsonian Ctr. for Astrophysics), R. Chornock (Univ. of California – Berkeley), R. Foley (Univ. of California – Berkeley), V. Stanishev (Stockholm Univ.), and R. Ibata (Obs. of Strasbourg). |
| Instrument | CXO>POSS2 (left) and HST>WFPC2 (right) |
| Exposure Dates | WFPC2: November 6-8 2003, Exposure Time: 1.2 hours |
| Filters | F555W (V) |
| About The Image | |
| Compass Image |  |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
