images

Tycho's supernova remnant in X-ray

by

Nasa/CXC/Sao/Novapix

Reference

a-snv10-00003

Date

2006-09-05

In 1572, the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe observed and studied the explosion of a star that became known as Tycho's supernova. More than four centuries later, Chandra's image of the supernova remnant shows an expanding bubble of multimillion degree debris (green and red) inside a more rapidly moving shell of extremely high energy electrons (filamentary blue). The supersonic expansion (about six million miles per hour) of the stellar debris has created two X-ray emitting shock waves - one moving outward into the interstellar gas, and another moving back into the debris. Observation Date 29 Apr 2003 Observation Time 41 hours