APOD: Tycho s Supernova Remnant (2011 Apr 30)

[APOD Robot]

Tycho s Supernova Remnant

Explanation: Tycho! Tycho! burning bright In the darkness of the night, What exploding white dwarf star Did frame thy remnant from afar, In the distant deep dark skies Under gaze of human eyes? Seen by mortals and their ma Named for one called Tycho Brahe.

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[Ann]

That's a really nice poem!

It's fun to see that "arc" in the lower left part of the supernova remnant and consider the latest thypothesis, namely, that the arc is created because a companion star to the star that exploded is mostly, but not completely, eclipsing a strong ultraviolet (or X-ray?) stream of photons from the supernova remnant itself. (Well, assuming I got the whole thing right.)

Oh, and by the way...

Click to view full size image

Ann

[bystander]

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=23518

Congratulations, owlice!

[L.A.Stars]

Uh, absolutely one of the most bizarre images I have yet seen on APOD and it comes with no explanation, only a poem. I'm not a scientest, just an enthusiast. What the heck is this picture? Why does Tycho look like that? What is the blue ring? How big is it? Are those dust clouds? Cmon man, don't just put a poem and no explanation! Ugh!

[Ann]

Uh, absolutely one of the most bizarre images I have yet seen on APOD and it comes with no explanation, only a poem. I'm not a scientest, just an enthusiast. What the heck is this picture? Why does Tycho look like that? What is the blue ring? How big is it? Are those dust clouds? Cmon man, don't just put a poem and no explanation! Ugh!

I googled the image and found one which is similar, although the image I found is a combination of X-ray and infrared observations.

Here is the caption that went with that image:

This composite image of the Tycho supernova remnant combines infrared and X-ray observations obtained with NASA's Spitzer and Chandra space observatories, respectively, and the Calar Alto observatory, Spain. It shows the scene more than four centuries after the brilliant star explosion witnessed by Tycho Brahe and other astronomers of that era.

The explosion has left a blazing hot cloud of expanding debris (green and yellow). The location of the blast's outer shock wave can be seen as a blue sphere of ultra-energetic electrons. Newly synthesized dust in the ejected material and heated pre-existing dust from the area around the supernova radiate at infrared wavelengths of 24 microns (red). Foreground and background stars in the image are white.

Image credit: MPIA/NASA/Calar Alto Observatory

As for how big the supernova remnant is, that depends on how far away it is. This is what Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1572) says about the probable distance to the remnant of Tycho's supernova:

The distance to the supernova remnant has been estimated to between 2 and 5 kpc (approx. 6,500 and 16,300 light-years), but recent studies suggest a value closer to 2.5 and 3 kpc (approx. 8,000 and 9,800 light-years).

So in order to find out how big this cloud is, you have to measure its angular size in the sky and figure out how big it is if it is 8.000 light-years away, and how big it is if it is 9.800 light-years away. The farther away it is, the bigger its actual size will be.

Ann

[Kent]

for more information, see:
http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2011/tycho2/

[Sam]

Uh, absolutely one of the most bizarre images I have yet seen on APOD and it comes with no explanation, only a poem. I'm not a scientest, just an enthusiast. What the heck is this picture? Why does Tycho look like that? What is the blue ring? How big is it? Are those dust clouds? Cmon man, don't just put a poem and no explanation! Ugh!

...
What exploding white dwarf star
...

[Sam]

Three cheers for Owlice!

[owlice]

Thank you! I was amused (and of course very pleased!) when using this was proposed, and thank neufer for the prompt.

A slightly more fitting version of the full poem, to go with the original Asterisk post on today's image, is below; bet some can suggest improvements, and I welcome seeing them, so please post your own!

• Tycho! Tycho! burning bright
  In the darkness of the night,
  What exploding white dwarf star
  Did frame thy remnant from afar,
  
  In the distant deep dark skies
  Under gaze of human eyes?
  Seen by mortals and their ma
  Named for one called Tycho Brahe.
  
  And what forces and what art
  Could form the gases of thy heart?
  Then thy wave began to spread,
  Thrown off from a star now dead.
  
  Chandra has thy stripes revealed!
  X-rays show what was concealed:
  Magnetic walls, electrons trapped
  Spiral 'round field lines now mapped?
  
  Oh, the blast threw off thy shell
  And the heavens blazed like hell
  When thy remnant first was born
  In fifteen seventy-two one morn.
  
  Tycho, Tycho, burning bright
  In the darkness of the night,
  What exploding white dwarf star
  Did frame thy remnant from afar?

(A thousand apologies to Blake)

[mexhunter]

Congratulations Alice!!!
Excelent poem and APOD.
Greetings
César

[biddie67]

What a wonderful and fun posting today's APOD is!!!

As the image was downloading, I had a very un-astronomical flashback to the bags of fur that I would get every Spring when I shaved my samoyed's very shaggy coat.

But then the magic ying-yang of friendly interactive poetry, history of the human kind and fascinating cosmic events were all linked together for today's APOD - what a special "colony in our mind's universe" the Starship Asterisk has become ...

[CML]

I'm a huge fan of Tycho, have been ever since I took up amateur astronomy in high school. This APOD was a pleasant surprise.

[alphachapmtl]

Something growing in a Petri dish...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cornellfungi/1875227806/
http://www.hackcollege.com/2008/04/11/p ... versities/

[Dustin]

Ahh
Celestial Poetry. Love it`
Thanks,
Dustin

[Beyond]

How did i ever miss owlice and neufer Ode-ing at each other? If you two do enough, you could make a book and call it -->The Ode's of the 'Cool' owl and the 'MAD' man. OR, you could also call it -->The book of Dueling Ode-ders. And blame, er, dedicate it to the Inspirer--Tycho Brahe, for his explosive observation.

[C0ppert0p]

But Tycho Brahe is prounounced "TEE-ko BRA-hay"
To a Canadian the fix is obvious:


Tycho! Tycho! burning bright
In the darkness of the night,
What exploding white dwarf star
Did frame thy remnant from afar,

In the distant deep dark skies
Under gaze of human eyes?
Seen by mortals and their ma, eh
Named for one called Tycho Brahe.

[Mulsar11]

For some reason to me, after visiting the site: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2011/tycho2/ and seeing their explanation for the arc (material pushed off a companion star) via their diagram, that this explanation doesn't seem to be physically possible at least in the way it was diagramed. Instead of producing an arc of material, it would seem that a donut-like structure (like a smoke ring) would be produced. If you look at the "high energy X-rays showing iron debris" link images under set 3 "high X-ray", you can see a circle-like feature that the "arc" at least seems to be a part of. Yes there would be a "shadow" feature to see, but it would be the interior of the ring structure. Why is one side of the ring brighter than the other? Could be that the "arc" is closer to our view with the further portions of the ring being further away and obscured by other debris from the explosion.

Just some thoughts for you consideration...

[Creativist]

The poem, although lovely and possibly good enough to be entered in a poetry contest, was not as informative as I have come to expect when visiting this site (which I do on nearly a daily basis). I look forward to reading the explanation from a professional astronomer as is promised in the introduction, and was very disappointed that I had to dig for it in the postings.

I would have loved to read this poem on a poetry site and would have enjoyed it had it been in addition to - rather than instead of - a scientific explanation of this incredible image. But I was frustrated when it was used in place of the scientific explanation and hope that this does not become a regular practice. Sign me as ... A disappointed fan of APOD!

[NoelC]

Cute! I did think it was a stretch trying to rhyme Brahe with ma.

And what a cool image. Those expecting only pure science without cultural enrichment need only take the link in the poem and be inundated with geek speak.

-Noel

[Jenanne]

Thank you! I was amused (and of course very pleased!) when using this was proposed, and thank neufer for the prompt.

A slightly more fitting version of the full poem, to go with the original Asterisk post on today's image, is below; bet some can suggest improvements, and I welcome seeing them, so please post your own!

• Tycho! Tycho! burning bright
  In the darkness of the night,
  What exploding white dwarf star
  Did frame thy remnant from afar,
  
  In the distant deep dark skies
  Under gaze of human eyes?
  Seen by mortals and their ma
  Named for one called Tycho Brahe.
  
  And what forces and what art
  Could form the gases of thy heart?
  When thy wave began to spread,
  Thrown off from a star now dead,
  
  Chandra has thy stripes revealed!
  X-rays show what was concealed:
  Magnetic walls, electrons trapped
  Spiral 'round field lines now mapped?
  
  Oh, the blast threw off thy shell
  And the heavens blazed like hell
  When thy remnant first was born
  In fifteen seventy-two one morn.
  
  Tycho, Tycho, burning bright
  In the darkness of the night,
  What exploding white dwarf star
  Did frame thy remnant from afar?

(A thousand apologies to Blake)

Love it! Thank you for the extended poem! It does justice to Blake's original classic.

I, too, would have liked an explanation after the poem so I didn't have to go hunting for the info; it would have made a nice change -- the poem and then the hard data.

Jenanne, a longtime APOD fan

[JohnD]

Well done!
But
"Seen by mortals and their ma
Named for one called Tycho Brahe" ??
Or even
"...ma, eh"?
Eheu!

Try,
"Only seen by science raphe,
Named for one called Tycho Brahe"

A 'raphe', pronounced "raff-eh" is a seam, ridge or edge - hence 'seen at the edge of science'.
Well, half a rhyme is better than none.

LA Stars,
You'll find that APOD cations contain multiple links to the source of the picture and to many other pages that add to the information therein. Not many here, but the second one takes you to lots of info about this extraordinary sight
John

[Ann]

JohnD wrote:

A 'raphe', pronounced "raff-eh" is a seam, ridge or edge - hence 'seen at the edge of science'.
Well, half a rhyme is better than none.

That's not half a rhyme, because Tycho Brahe's last name was pronounced brah-eh.

Ann

[islader2]

Creativist: I have read every APOD since Day One. When "Discuss" came along, I was delighted. Golly, I had Neufer comment on one om my posts! Hang in there--and follow the links (many of them in Discuss).
comments are welcome, even negativity! Thanx,

[owlice]

In English, "Brahe" is typically pronounced "brah." I may wish otherwise, as I love the Canadian "eh"-ddition; totally cracked me up!!!

[NoelC]

Based on the number of views of this thread, I'd say you (and NASA / CXC / F.J. Lu (Chinese Academy of Sciences) et al.) have gone viral, Owlice!

-Noel