Speedy star may be linked to 1572 celestial light show

By Thomas H. Maugh II
Los Angeles Times

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Astronomers have solved a 400-year-old cosmic mystery, locating the missing companion star that played a crucial role in the titanic supernova explosion witnessed by Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe on Nov. 11, 1572.

Brahe was not aware of precisely what he had seen, but his careful documentation of the brilliant star that suddenly appeared in the constellation Cassiopeia and then slowly faded away allowed modern researchers to conclude that he had witnessed a type 1a supernova — the death of a star in an explosion 1 billion times as bright as the sun.

Type 1a supernovas are believed to be produced in a binary system containing a normal star and a burned-out white dwarf star. The normal star spills matter — mostly hydrogen — into the white dwarf, eventually causing the dwarf star to explode. In the process, the normal star is blasted into space with more velocity.

Astronomers have been searching for that escaping star from Brahe's supernova, but without success. Astronomer Pilar Ruiz-Lapuente of the University of Barcelona, Spain, and her colleagues reported in this week's edition of the journal Nature that they discovered a likely candidate.

After seven years of searching using a number of telescopes, the team has found an aging version of our sun that is in the right area, about 10,000 light-years from Earth, but that is moving about three times as fast as other stars in the region. If this star, called Tycho G, is indeed the companion star, it confirms the basic theory about how supernovas occur, experts said.

When Brahe first noticed the supernova, it was about the brightness of the planet Jupiter. It soon equaled Venus in brightness, then could be seen in the daytime for two weeks. By the end of November, it began to fade and change color, eventually disappearing from view in March 1574.

The observation was important because it helped 16th century astronomers abandon the idea of the immutability of the heavens.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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