- Timeline of white dwarfs, neutron stars, and supernovae
Timeline ofwhite dwarf s,neutron star s, andsupernova eNote that this list is mainly about the development of knowledge, but also about some supernovae taking place. For a separate list of the latter, see the section "Notable supernovae" in the article
supernova . All dates refer to when the supernova was observed on Earth or would have been observed on Earth had powerful enough telescopes existed at the time.*
185 - Chinese astronomers become the first to observe asupernova , theSN 185 ,
*1006 -Ali ibn Ridwan and Chinese astronomers observe the brightest (magnitude -9) recorded supernova,SN 1006 , which is observed in the constellation of Lupus,
*1054 - Chinese, American Indian and Arab astronomers observe theSN 1054 , theCrab Nebula supernova explosion,
*1181 - Chinese astronomers observe theSN 1181 supernova,
*1572 -Tycho Brahe discovers his supernova in Cassiopeia,
*1604 -Johannes Kepler 's supernova,SN 1604 , inSerpens is observed,
*1862 -Alvan Clark observes Sirius B,
*1866 -William Huggins studies the spectrum of anova and discovers that it is surrounded by a cloud ofhydrogen ,
*1885 - Asupernova ,S Andromedae , is observed in theAndromeda Galaxy leading to recognition of supernovae as a distinct class of novae,
*1910 - the spectrum of40 Eridani B is observed, making it the first confirmedwhite dwarf ,
*1914 -Walter Sydney Adams determines an incredibly highdensity forSirius B ,
*1926 -Ralph Fowler usesFermi-Dirac statistics to explainwhite dwarf stars,
*1930 -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar discovers thewhite dwarf maximum mass limit,
*1933 -Fritz Zwicky andWalter Baade propose theneutron star idea and suggest thatsupernova e might be created by the collapse of normal stars to neutron stars---they also point out that such events can explain the cosmic ray background,
*1939 -Robert Oppenheimer andGeorge Volkoff calculate the firstneutron star models,
*1942 - J.J.L. Duyvendak,Nicholas Mayall , andJan Oort deduce that theCrab Nebula is a remnant of the 1054 supernova observed by Chinese astronomers,
*1958 -Evry Schatzman ,Kent Harrison ,Masami Wakano , andJohn Wheeler show that white dwarfs are unstable to inversebeta decay ,
*1962 -Riccardo Giacconi ,Herbert Gursky ,Frank Paolini , andBruno Rossi discoverScorpius X-1 ,
*1967 - Jocelyn Bell andAnthony Hewish discoverradio pulse s from apulsar ,
*1967 - J.R. Harries,Ken McCracken , R.J. Francey, and A.G. Fenton discover the firstX-ray transient (Cen X-2),
*1968 -Thomas Gold proposes thatpulsar s are rotatingneutron star s,
*1969 -David Staelin , E.C. Reifenstein, William Cocke,Mike Disney , andDonald Taylor discover theCrab Nebula pulsar thus connectingsupernova e,neutron star s, andpulsar s,
*1971 - Riccardo Giacconi, Herbert Gursky,Ed Kellogg , R. Levinson, E. Schreier, and H. Tananbaum discover 4.8 second X-ray pulsations fromCentaurus X-3 ,
*1974 - Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor discover the binarypulsar PSR B1913+16 ,
*1977 -Kip Thorne andAnna Żytkow present a detailed analysis ofThorne-Żytkow object s,
*1982 -Donald Backer ,Shrinivas Kulkarni ,Carl Heiles , Michael Davis, andMiller Goss discover themillisecond pulsar PSR 1937+214 ,
*1985 -Michiel van der Klis discovers 30 Hz quasi-periodic oscillations inGX 5-1 ,
*1987 -Ian Shelton discoversSN 1987A in theLarge Magellanic Cloud ...
*2006 -SN 2006gy inNGC 1260
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