Overview
- The Gemini North GMOS image released Tuesday shows Pa 30’s striking radial filaments are not smooth streaks but cascading chains of tiny knots, increasing mapped detail by about tenfold.
- Researchers identified Pa 30 as the likely remnant of the supernova recorded in 1181 and report it is the only confirmed Type Iax remnant in the Milky Way, a low-energy thermonuclear explosion that can leave a surviving star.
- The remnant’s central object, catalogued as IRAS 00500+6713, sits nearly centered, has an extreme surface temperature near 200,000°C, and drives very fast winds of roughly 16,000 km/s.
- Scientists say the uniform, pearl-like knots point to thermal or density variations in the circumstellar medium that sculpted the ejecta and that the star’s near-center position implies a largely symmetrical blast.
- Pa 30 was first found by citizen scientist Dana Patchick in 2013 and the new analysis appears in The Astrophysical Journal under the title 'Detection of knots in the supernova type Iax remnant Pa 30,' giving astronomers a nearby laboratory to test incomplete‑explosion models.