On the nature of Tycho Brahe's supernova

Abstract

At the 450 yr anniversary of its observation, the supernova named after Tycho Brahe, SN 1572, can be explained in the terms used nowadays to characterize Type supernovae (SNe Ia). By assembling the records of the observations made in 1572--74 and evaluating their uncertainties, it is possible to recover the light curve and the color evolution of this supernova. It is found that, within the SNe Ia family, the event should have been a SN Ia with a normal rate of decline. Concerning the color evolution of SNe Ia, the most recently recovered records reaffirm previous findings of its being a normal SN Ia. Since 2004, an exploration for the progenitor of this SN Ia has tentatively suggested that the binary path to the explosion was that of a single degenerate. However, this is not conclusive at this point. The abundance studies from X--ray spectroscopy of the whole remnant point to a nuclear burning of the kind of a delayed detonation explosion of a Chandrasekhar--mass white dwarf. This was the first supernova studied by astronomers and it is still subject of very active research.