Weird supernova remnant blows scientists' minds - Nature.com

Vasilii Gvaramadze, an astronomer at Lomonosov Moscow State University in Russia, and his colleagues found an extremely unusual star in 2019 at the dead center of Pa 30 2.

Pa 30 was again the subject of intrigue in 2021, when Andreas Ritter, an astronomer at the University of Hong Kong, and his colleagues proposed that the remnant is the aftermath of a supernova that lit up the sky nearly 850 years ago, in 1181 3.

Intrigued, Fesen’s group later imaged the remnant with an optical filter that is sensitive to that line using the 2.4-metre Hiltner Telescope at the Michigan–Dartmouth–MIT Observatory at Kitt Peak, Arizona.

The Crab Nebula is a more standard example of a supernova remnant, in which a dying star ejects a chaotic web of gas and dust.Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Hester and A. Loll (Arizona State University)

A normal type-Ia supernova occurs when a white dwarf siphons material from a companion star, eventually growing so massive that it can no longer support the extra weight and blows itself to smithereens — dispersing its innards across the galaxy.

Although theorists have developed many possible mechanisms to explain type-Iax supernovae, Ritter and his colleagues think that two white dwarfs slammed together to produce Pa 30’s fireworks.