2,000-year-old 'super-sized supernova' mystery solved

Washington, Oct 25 (ANI): NASA astronomers have finally solved a 2,000-year-old stellar mystery- why the first documented supernova was super-sized.

The exploded star was observed by the ancient Chinese in the year 185, and visible for eight months.

It was later found to be a bigger-than-expected supernova remnant, 8,000 light years away.

Now, new observations by NASA in the infrared revealed that the explosion took place in a cavity in space.

The researchers said that this "hollowed-out cavity" of space was relatively free of gas and dust, thus allowing the stellar shrapnel to shoot faster and farther out into the universe.

The star - similar to our sun - died peacefully and turned into a dense white dwarf. It sucked up material from another star, and then exploded in a supernova.

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer were used to take infrared views of the supernova.

Astronomers now believe what the locals saw nearly 2,000 years ago was a Type Ia supernova, in which an otherwise-stable white dwarf, or dead star, got pushed beyond the brink of stability when a companion star dumped material onto it.

"This supernova remnant got really big, really fast," CBS News quoted Brian Williams, an astronomer at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, as saying in a statement.

"It's two to three times bigger than we would expect for a supernova that was witnessed exploding nearly 2,000 years ago. Now, we've been able to finally pinpoint the cause," he added. (ANI)