Timeline ofneutron stars,pulsars,supernovae, andwhite dwarfs

Note 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 articleList of supernovae. 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 record observations of asupernova,SN 185.
• 1006 –SN 1006, amagnitude −7.5 supernova in the constellation ofLupus, is observed throughout Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.
• 1054 – Astronomers in Asia and theMiddle East observeSN 1054, theCrab Nebula supernova explosion.
• 1181 – Chinese astronomers observe theSN 1181 supernova.
• 1572 –Tycho Brahe discovers a supernova (SN 1572) in the constellationCassiopeia.
• 1604 –Johannes Kepler's supernova,SN 1604, inSerpens is observed.
• 1862 –Alvan Graham Clark observesSirius B.
• 1866 –William Huggins studies thespectrum 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 thatsupernovae might be created by the collapse of normal stars to neutron stars—they also point out that such events can explain thecosmic 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 the1054 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 andAntony Hewish discover radio pulses from apulsar,PSR B1919+21.
• 1967 – J.R. Harries,Kenneth G. McCracken, R.J. Francey, and A.G. Fenton discover the firstX-ray transient (Cen X-2).
• 1968 –Thomas Gold proposes thatpulsars are rotatingneutron stars.
• 1969 –David H. Staelin, Edward C. Reifenstein,William Cocke,Mike Disney, andDonald Taylor discover theCrab Nebula pulsar thus connectingsupernovae,neutron stars, andpulsars.
• 1971 –Riccardo Giacconi,Herbert Gursky,Ed Kellogg, R. Levinson, E. Schreier, and H. Tananbaum discover 4.8 second X-ray pulsations fromCentaurus X-3.
• 1972 –Charles Kowal discovers theType Ia supernovaSN 1972e inNGC 5253, which would be observed for more than a year and become the basis case for the type,
• 1974 –Russell Hulse andJoseph Taylor discover the binarypulsarPSR B1913+16.
• 1977 –Kip Thorne andAnna Żytkow present a detailed analysis ofThorne–Żytkow objects.
• 1982 –Donald Backer,Shrinivas Kulkarni,Carl Heiles,Michael Davis, andMiller Goss discover themillisecond pulsarPSR B1937+214.
• 1985 –Michiel van der Klis discovers 30 Hz quasi-periodic oscillations in GX 5-1.
• 1987 –Ian Shelton discoversSN 1987A in theLarge Magellanic Cloud.
• 2003 – first double binary pulsar,PSR J0737−3039, discovered atParkes Observatory.
• 2006 –Robert Quimby and P. Mondol discoverSN 2006gy (a possiblehypernova) inNGC 1260.
• 2017 – first observation ofneutron star merger, accompanied withgravitational wave signalGW170817, shortgamma-ray burstsGRB 170817A, optical transientAT 2017gfo and other electromagnetic signals.^[1][2]

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• Use mdy dates from June 2013