M1 - An Explosion in Space Sky-watchers on Earth witnessed and wrote about a bright “supernova” (literally meaning “new star”) in the year 1054. What they were really viewing was the birth of rapidly expanding clouds from an exploding star. By the year 2021, roughly one thousand years later, these clouds have covered a distance of nearly 10 light years, and they continue to expand at a rate of about 1000 kilometers per second. In 1840, after viewing this supernova remnant through a telescope...
