Explanation:
What star created this huge expanding puffball?
Featured here
is the first expansion movie ever created for
Tycho's supernova remnant, the result of a stellar explosion
first recorded over 400 years ago by the famous astronomer
Tycho Brahe.
The 2-second video
is a time-lapse composite of
X-ray
images taken by the orbiting
Chandra X-ray Observatory between the years
2000 and 2015,
added to a stock optical frame.
The expanding gas cloud is extremely hot,
while slightly different expansion speeds have given the cloud a
puffy appearance.
Although the star that created
SN 1572,
is likely completely gone, a star dubbed
Tycho G,
too dim to be
discerned here,
is thought to be a companion.
Finding progenitor remnants of
Tycho's supernova is particularly important because the
supernova
is of Type Ia, an important rung in the
distance ladder that calibrates the
scale of the visible universe.
The peak brightness of
Type Ia supernovas is thought to be well understood,
making them quite valuable in exploring the relationship between
faintness and farness in the distant universe.
