Long Observation -Supernova SN 1006 Gets A New X-Ray View A Thousand Years After First Sighting
Wednesday, April 17, 2013 - 16:20
in Astronomy & Space
X-ray astronomy is only 50 years old but nothing shows the progress of the technology like a new view of a supernova scientists have been watching for over a thousand years. SN 1006 got its name because it first appeared to us on May 1, 1006 A.D. It was far brighter than Venus and visible during the daytime for weeks, so astronomers from Asia, Europe and the Arab world all documented this spectacular sight. In the 1960s, when engineers were able to launch instruments and detectors above Earth's atmosphere to observe the Universe in wavelengths that are blocked from the ground, including X-rays, SN 1006 was an early target and one of the faintest X-ray sources detected by that first generation of X-ray satellites. read more