1. SPACE FORENSICS: Death of a Star Sara Mitchell Jim Lochner NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, Maryland

3. What’s a supernova?

4. Can you spot the supernova?

5. Supernova Timeline Earliest recorded supernova — 185 A.D. in China Famous historic supernovae in 1006, 1572, and 1604 A.D. First telescope built in 1608 by Hans Lippershey Multiwavelength observations of supernova remnants began in 1937

6. Beginning the Investigation What do we want to know ?

7. Case File: Cassiopeia A Host Galaxy: Milky Way Constellation: Cassiopeia Galactic Coordinates: G111.7-2.1 Distance: ~ 10,000 light years Discovery: 1947 Interesting facts: Discovered by radio observation Strongest radio source in the sky beyond our solar system Image: Chandra X-Ray Observatory August 19, 1999

8. Crime Scene Photographs VisibleX-RayRadioInfrared Hot gas (50 million degrees) Clumps of matter (10,000 degrees) Dust grains (several hundred degrees) Spiraling high energy electrons

9. Why Multiwavelength?

10. Supernova “DNA”

11. “Signature” Spectroscopy

12. Looking for Signatures All X-Ray Energies Calcium Silicon Iron

13. Case Closed? Have we answered all of our questions? Have we found new questions? Where else can we find answers? What could we learn from seeing a “live” supernova?

14. Is Cas A a “cold case”? Image: SN2005cs © 2005-2007 by R. Jay GaBany http://www.cosmotography.com

15. Is Cas A a “cold case”? Image: SN2005ap Sloan Digital Sky Survey

16. Larger Body of Evidence Crab Nebula (from SN 1054) Tycho’s SN (SN 1572) Kepler’s SN (SN 1604) SN 1987A

17. Space Forensics: The Big Picture