SN 1181 gets its sharpest view yet: new images reveal a zombie star

Gemini North has released new images of Pa 30, the supernova remnant long associated with SN 1181, and they offer the clearest look yet at the debris. With the Gemini North telescope in Hawai’i, researchers picked out red ionized sulfur and blue-green ionized oxygen surrounding a surviving white dwarf. The new sulfur data also revealed 10 times more filaments than earlier observations, with the team reporting 10 times more filaments. In the Milky Way, Pa 30 is still the only known Type Iax remnant where the star that exploded appears to have made it through, the researchers say.

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Pa 30 lies about 7,500 light-years from Earth and was discovered in 2013 by an amateur astronomer. It’s widely connected to the supernova seen in 1181 AD by observers in China, Japan, and the Arab world, who recorded it in Cassiopeia for 185 days, according to historical accounts. That makes it one of only five supernovae documented before the telescope era.

The filaments also break up into strangely even giant knots, each big enough to swallow the planetary region of our solar system many times over. To the researchers, that points to a blast with more structure than chaos, likely tied to two white dwarfs that merged or collided in a weaker, incomplete Type Iax explosion.

The bigger mystery is the survivor itself. In the new Gemini North images, the white dwarf sits almost exactly at the center of a symmetrical nebula, rather than being thrown off to one side. That detail could force a rethink of current Type Iax models.

If you follow this kind of research, these images are worth a look. NOIRLab has them available to view.

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Author: Jesús Pina

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