science · 30 April 1006 · 1018 years ago
In 1006, Chinese and Arabic astronomers noted a supernova. The speed of the still-expanding shock wave was measured nearly a millenium later.* This is was history's brightest "new star" ever recorded, at first seen to be brighter than the planet Venus. It occurred in our Milky Way galaxy, appearing in the southern constellation Lupus, near the star Beta Lupi. It was also recorded by observers in Switzerland, Italy, Japan, Egypt and Iraq. From the careful descriptions of the Chinese astronomers of how the light varied, that it was of apparently yellow color and visible for over a year, it is possible that the supernova reached a magnitude of up to -9. Modern measurements of the speed of the shock wave have been used to estimate its distance.
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