• DOI:10.1126/science.1155788
• Corpus ID: 40884513

The Cassiopeia A Supernova Was of Type IIb

@article{Krause2008TheCA,
  title={The Cassiopeia A Supernova Was of Type IIb},
  author={Oliver Krause and Stephan M. Birkmann and Tomonori Usuda and Takashi Hattori and Miwa Goto and George H. Rieke and Karl Anthony Misselt},
  journal={Science},
  year={2008},
  volume={320},
  pages={1195 - 1197}
}

• O. Krause, S. Birkmann, +4 authors K. Misselt
• Published 29 May 2008
• Physics
• Science

Cassiopeia A is the youngest supernova remnant known in the Milky Way and a unique laboratory for supernova physics. We present an optical spectrum of the Cassiopeia A supernova near maximum brightness, obtained from observations of a scattered light echo more than three centuries after the direct light of the explosion swept past Earth. The spectrum shows that Cassiopeia A was a type IIb supernova and originated from the collapse of the helium core of a red supergiant that had lost most of its hydrogen envelope before exploding. Our finding concludes a long-standing debate on the Cassiopeia A progenitor and provides new insight into supernova physics by linking the properties of the explosion to the wealth of knowledge about its remnant.