Friday, July 04, 2008

Supernova remnants

The Astronomy Picture Of the Day for 4-July is a multi-spectrum picture of the supernova remnant from the year 1006 supernova. The shell is about 60 light years across.

And that's interesting, because the shell looks moderately uniform. I'd expect it to have enveloped several neighboring stars, each with its own stellar wind. The blast of wind from each star should make dimples in the shell. If we could compare the positions of the neighboring stars with distortions in the shell, we might be able to cross-check estimates of the relative power densities of the supernova blast and the stellar winds.

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