Dissecting Light from Ancient Stellar Explosions (Forwarded)

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EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE: 11:00 a.m. EST, Monday, January 9, 2006

RELEASE NO: NOAO 06-02

Dissecting Light from Ancient Stellar Explosions

In a feat resembling an intergalactic autopsy, astronomers have used the
Gemini South telescope in Chile to obtain a detailed spectrum of an echo
of light from an ancient supernova that enables them to identify the
original star's cause of death.

Beyond confirming that the team's basic interpretation of the light echo
was correct, the spectrum suggests strongly that the explosion was a
Type-Ia supernova that originated with a compact white dwarf star in the
Large Magellanic Cloud.

This result, announced today in Washington, DC, at the annual meeting of
the American Astronomical Society, is an important step beyond the
discovery of the ancient light echoes themselves, three of which were
reported in the December 22, 2005, issue of Nature magazine. The supernova
in the Large Magellenic Cloud that is suspected to be a Type-Ia occurred
approximately 400 years ago. The survey team which authored this result
has since found a fourth echo in the same nearby galaxy, located 160,000
light-years from Earth.

"These four echoes originated from supernovae that are unrecorded in human
history," said Nicholas Suntzeff, an astronomer from the National Optical
Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) and co-author of the result. "Had an observer
in the southern hemisphere looked up in the sky at the right time four
centuries ago, such a supernova would have been as bright as the very
brightest stars in the night sky, such as Sirius or Canopus, for many
weeks."

The spectrum of the echo arc shows that it was most likely a white dwarf
star that exploded in a thermonuclear detonation that astronomers call a
Type-Ia supernova. These supernovae are important sources of most of the
iron and iron-like elements in the Universe. By counting the number of
echoes with known ages, astronomers will be able to more precisely
estimate the rate of buildup of these elements in galaxies over time.

"We took a spectrum of the brightest echo that we found, using the Gemini
South telescope and the GMOS instrument with its slitlets aligned along
the echo segments," said co-author Armin Rest of NOAO. "We find that
Type-II supernovae spectra do not fit the observation. The best
comparative fit that we obtain is with SN 1991T, an overluminous Type-Ia
supernova. The spectrum of a Type-Ibc, which is the type related to
gamma-ray bursts, produces a noticeably worse fit, but cannot yet be ruled
out."

The light echoes were discovered by comparing images of the Large
Magellanic Cloud (LMC) taken years apart. By precisely subtracting the
common elements in each image, the team looks for evidence of invisible
dark matter that might distort the light of stars in a transitory way, as
part of a sky survey called SuperMACHO.

This careful image analysis also revealed a small number of concentric,
circular-shaped arcs that are best explained as light moving outward over
time, and being scattered and reflected toward Earth as it encounters
dense pockets of cool interstellar dust.

The SuperMACHO team used the National Science Foundation's Blanco 4-meter
telescope and wide-area Mosaic imager at Cerro Tololo Inter-American
Observatory near La Serena, Chile, to discover the echoes. Team members
were able to precisely associate these echoes with the faint remnants of
supernovae of unknown ages seen in radio telescope observations by noting
that groups of echoes seemed to be moving away from three well defined
positions in the galaxy.

These light echoes are the same type of phenomenon as common sound echoes,
except it is light, not sound, that is being reflected. "Just as you can
faintly hear an echo of yourself a little later in time when you shout
'Hello' toward a distant mountain cliff, these light echoes are the faint
but precise imprints of the original light," Suntzeff said. "The technique
raises the prospect of identifying the source of many popular supernovae
that have occurred as long as 2,000 years ago."

The bright supernovae recorded in northern skies over the past 1,000 years
of probable Type-Ia origin, such as SN 1604 studied by Kepler, SN 1592
studied by Tycho Brahe, and SN 1006 studied by Chinese astronomers, will
be perhaps the easiest targets. Echoes from the famous Crab Nebula
supernova of 1054 may also be visible.

This discovery confirms a prediction by visionary astronomer Fritz Zwicky,
who suggested in 1940 that the light from historical supernovae could
still be seen as faint echoes.

Color graphics that illustrate the process and appearance of a supernova
light echo are available from NOAO Press Release 05-12,
http://www.noao.edu/outreach/press/pr05/pr0512.html

Co-authors of this result from poster paper 132.14 at the AAS meeting
include C. Smith, K. Olsen, A. Zenteno, C. Aguilera and T. Matheson
(NOAO); C. Stubbs, A. Garg, P. Challis (Harvard University); M. Bergmann
(Gemini Observatory); A. C. Becker, A. Miceli, R. Covarrubias (University
of Washington); G. A. Miknaitis (Fermilab); D. L. Welch (McMaster
University, Ontario); J. L. Prieto (Ohio State University); M. Huber, S.
Nikolaev, K. Cook (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory); and, D.
Minniti, A. Clocchiatti, L. Morelli (Pontifica Universidad Católica de
Chile).

The National Optical Astronomy Observatory is operated by the Association
of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc. (AURA), under a cooperative
agreement with the National Science Foundation.