Ancient supernova mystery solved

[Rick]

In 1572, a "new star" appeared in the sky which stunned astronomers and exploded ancient theories of the universe.

Now the supernova recorded by Tycho Brahe has been glimpsed again, by Max Planck Institute scientists.

They used telescopes in Hawaii and Spain to capture faint light echoes of the original explosion, reflected by interstellar dust.

This "fossil imprint" of Tycho's famous supernova is reported in Nature.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7762939.stm

[MarkS]

Wow!

So they did spectral analysis on an supernova explosion that was visible on Earth 400 years ago.  Really clever!