While many supernovae have been seen in nearby galaxies, they are relatively rare events in our own galaxy. The last to be seen was Kepler's star in 1604. This remnant has been studied by many X-ray astronomy satellites, including ROSAT. There are, however, many remnants of Supernovae explosions in our galaxy, that are seen as X-ray shell like structures caused by the shock wave propagating out into the interstellar medium. Another famous remnant is the Crab Nebula which exploded in 1054. In this case a pulsar is seen which rotates 30 times a second and emits a rotating beam of X-rays (like a lighthouse). Another dramatic supernova remnant is the Cygnus Loop.
You are visitor number [an error occurred while processing this directive].
This file was last modified on Thursday, 26-Jun-2003 13:48:43 EDT
Web page maintained by firstname.lastname@example.org
HEASARC Home | Observatories | Archive | Calibration | Software | Tools | Students/Teachers/Public
Last modified: Thursday, 26-Jun-2003 13:48:43 EDT