A 400th Anniversary Look at Kepler's Supernova Remnant Using the Great Observatories

Ravi Sankrit

Kepler's supernova remnant is one of a handful of historical supernova remnants - those for which we know the year of the supernova explosion. It is the remnant of the supernova of October 9, 1604 and is named after Johannes Kepler, who made observations of the "new star" for a year, till it became too faint to observe with the naked eye. We present, and discuss recent observations of Kepler's supernova remnant obtained with NASA's three Great Observatories - Hubble, Spitzer and Chandra. These observations show in unprecedented detail the optical, IR, and X-ray structure of the object. These data will help us understand the inherently complex relationship among components emitting at different wavebands in young supernova remnants.