2005/10/26 by A. Rest, N. B. Suntzeff, K. Olsen +21 · 6 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Brightness #Galaxy #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Large Magellanic Cloud #Light curve #Physics #Supernova #Surface brightness #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/nature04365
13 pages, 3 figures, 1 table. PDF format. Note: This paper has been accepted by Nature for publication as a letter. It is embargoed for discussion in the popular press until publication in Nature
arxiv created 2005/10/26 · openalex publication_date 2005/12/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
In principle, the light from historical supernovae could still be visible as scattered-light echoes even centuries later. However, while echoes have been discovered around some nearby extragalactic supernovae well after the explosion, targeted searches have not recovered any echoes in the regions of historical Galactic supernovae. The discovery of echoes can allow us to pinpoint the supernova event both in position and age and, most importantly, allow us to acquire spectra of the echo light to type the supernova centuries after the direct light from the explosion first reached the Earth. Here we report on the discovery of three faint new variable surface brightness complexes with high apparent proper motion pointing back to well-defined positions in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). These positions correspond to three of the six smallest (and likely youngest) previously catalogued supernova remnants, and are believed to be due to thermonuclear (Type Ia) supernovae. Using the distance and proper motions of these echo arcs, we estimate ages of 610 and 410 yr for the echoes #2 and #3.