Forgotten supernova is found again

Sydney -- Australian astronomers using the European Space Agency's orbiting X-ray observatory XMM-Newton have rediscovered an ignored supernova.

Astronomers Bryan Gaensler and Anant Tanna of the University of Sydney said the object is one of the youngest and brightest supernova remnants in the Milky Way -- the corpse of a star that exploded approximately 1,000 years ago.

The expanding cloud of debris supernovas leave behind usually appears as an expanding bubble or ring. But when astronomers took their first high-resolution radio images of the object known as G350.1-0.3 during the 1980s, they saw an irregular knot of gases. So they classified it as a probable background galaxy and forgot about it.

"G350.1-0.3 is indeed the debris of an exploded star despite its misshapen configuration," said Gaensler and Tanna. "In fact, it turns out to be one of the youngest and brightest supernova remnants in the Milky Way."

They said they hope further investigations of G350.1-0.3 will yield clues as to exactly what kind of star exploded.

"It may turn out that many of the youngest supernova remnants have these strange shapes," said Tanna, "The hunt to find more is now on."
The research appears in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International.