Humanity first spotted this supernova in 1572. 📅 This supernova remnant is called Tycho, named for Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, who noticed the bright glow of this new “star” in the constellation Cassiopeia 451 years ago. New observations by our Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) have built upon past data collected by nasachandraxray. IXPE’s findings revealed, for the first time, the geometry of the magnetic fields close to the shock wave. Understanding the magnetic field geometry allows scientists to address some of the biggest questions in astrophysics, such as how Tycho and other objects accelerate particles closer to the speed of light than the most powerful particle accelerators on Earth. The Tycho supernova blast itself released as much energy as the Sun would put out over the course of 10 billion years. That brilliance rendered the Tycho supernova visible to the naked eye here on Earth in 1572, when it was spotted by Brahe and other stargazers, potentially includ...