Like detectives inspecting the scene of a bank heist, astrophysicists carefully study supernovae remnants for the clues they provide to the supernovaexplosion itself, hundreds of years ago.
"The interesting thing is that the protons don't get accelerated in the supernovaexplosion itself, but they get accelerated in what we call the remnant - the shockwave that is created in the explosion and then moves away through the interstellar medium, " said Dr Funk.