Action Replay of Powerful Stellar Explosion (Forwarded)

Jennifer Morcone
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-7199

Megan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center, Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998

For Release: March 20, 2008

Action Replay of Powerful Stellar Explosion

Astronomers have made the best ever determination of the power of a
supernova explosion that was visible from Earth long ago. By observing the
remnant of a supernova and a light echo from the initial outburst, they have
established the validity of a powerful new method for studying supernovas.

Using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, ESA's XMM-Newton
Observatory, and the Gemini Observatory, two teams of researchers studied
the supernova remnant and the supernova light echo that are located in the
Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a small galaxy about 160,000 light years from
Earth. They concluded that the supernova occurred about 400 years ago (in
Earths time frame), and was unusually bright and energetic.

This result is the first time two methods -- X-ray observations of a
supernova remnant and optical observations of the expanding light echoes
from the explosion -- have both been used to estimate the energy of a
supernova explosion. Up until now, scientists had only made such an estimate
using the light seen soon after a star exploded, or using remnants that are
several hundred years old, but not from both.

"People didn't have advanced telescopes to study supernovas when they went
off hundreds of years ago," said Armin Rest of Harvard University, who led
the light echo observations using Gemini. "But we've done the next best
thing by looking around the site of the explosion and constructing an action
replay of it."

In 2004, scientists used Chandra to determine that a supernova remnant,
known as SNR 0509-67.5 in the LMC, was a so-called Type Ia supernova, caused
by a white dwarf star in a binary system that reaches a critical mass and
explodes.

In the new optical study, an estimate of the explosion's energy came from
studying an echo of the original light of the explosion. Just as sound
bounces off walls of a canyon, so too can light waves create an echo by
bouncing off dust clouds in space. The light from these echoes travels a
longer path than the light that travels straight toward us, and so can be
seen hundreds of years after the supernova itself.

First seen by the Cerro-Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, the
light echoes were observed in greater detail by Gemini Observatory in Chile.
The optical spectra of the light echo were used to confirm that the
supernova was a Type Ia and to unambiguously determine the particular class
of explosion and therefore its energy.

The Chandra data, along with XMM data obtained in 2000, were then
independently used to calculate the amount of energy involved in the
original explosion, using an analysis of the supernova remnant and
state-of-the-art explosion models. Their conclusion confirmed the results
from the optical data, namely that the explosion was an especially energetic
and bright variety of Type Ia supernova. This agreement provides strong
evidence that the detailed explosion models are accurate.

"Having these two methods agree lets us breathe a sigh of relief," said
Carlos Badenes of Princeton University who led the Chandra and XMM study.
"It looks like we're on the right track with trying to understand these big
explosions. Their stellar debris really can retain a memory of what created
them hundreds of years earlier."

Both methods estimated a similar time since the explosion of about 400
years. An extra constraint on the age comes from the lack of recorded
historical evidence for a recent supernova in the LMC. Because this star
appears in the Southern Hemisphere, it likely would have been seen by
navigators who noted similarly bright celestial events if it had occurred
less than about 400 years ago.

Because Type Ia supernovas have nearly uniform intrinsic brightness, they
are used as important tools by scientists to study the expansion of the
universe and the nature of dark energy.

"It's crucial to know that the basic assumptions about these explosions are
correct, so they're not used just as black-boxes to measure distances," said
Badenes.

This work is also being extended to other supernova remnants and light
echoes.

"This is the first case where the conclusions that are drawn from the
supernova remnant about the original explosion can be directly tested by
looking at the original event itself," said Rest. "We'll be able to learn a
lot about supernovas in our own galaxy by using this technique."

These results appear in two recently accepted papers in The Astrophysical
Journal. The first discusses the spectrum obtained by Gemini, led by Rest.
The second, with Badenes as first author, details the Chandra and XMM
observations of SNR 0509-67.5. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center,
Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for the agency's Science
Mission Directorate. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls
science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge,
Mass.

Additional information and images are available at:

http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2008/snr0509/
and
http://chandra.nasa.gov