Of supernova remnants and stellar nurseries in the Large Magellanic Cloud

With a temperature of 250,000 °C — 45 times that at the surface of our Sun — astronomers believe that this dying star in the outskirts of the Milky Way may have peaked at 400,000 °C a thousand years ago. The researchers were also the first to observe an intergalactic gas cloud moving towards the Milky Way — indicating that galaxies collect fresh material from deep space, which they can use to make new stars.

Astronomers have observed the debris field from the supernova of 1572, now known as Tycho’s supernova remnant, with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the NSF’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA). By combining the X-ray data with some 30 years of observations in radio waves, astronomers have also produced a movie showing the expansion from the explosion is still continuing 444 years later.

Computer simulations indicated the Large Cloud of Magellan may have merged with another luminous galaxy three to five billion years ago, a scenario that explains unusual stellar motions and ages.