Merit-bound Alley

The Chandra X-Ray Observatory has found the youngest supernova yet in our galaxy. Poetically named supernova remnant G1.9+0.3 was first observed by the Very Large Array back in 1985, where it was hypothesized to be ~400-1000 years old. A comparison of the VLA and the above image taken in 2007 have shown that the remnant has expanded 16% in the time between and that it is expanding at 35 million miles per hour.

This data puts the supernova at ~140 years old, about 12 younger than presidential hopeful John McCain.