Brahe's observations helped overturn
Aristotle's theories of the universe
Cosmic flashbulb
To elucidate, Dr Krause and his team conducted a "post-mortem", by training their telescopes on faint light echoes from the original event.
A supernova explosion acts like a cosmic flashbulb - producing light that propagates in all directions.
Brahe's observations helped overturn Aristotle's theories of the universe
The first direct light wave from the explosion swept past Earth in 1572, observed by Brahe.
But even today, further waves of light from the original explosion continue to reach Earth indirectly - reflected in the "mirror" of interstellar dust particles.
These "light echoes" contain a kind of "fossil imprint" of the original supernova, and are used by astronomers to "time travel" back to witness ancient cosmic events.
Dr Krause and his team were able to detect an optical spectrum of Tycho's supernova at near maximum brightness, using telescopes at the Calar Alto observatory, Spain, and at Mauna Kea, Hawaii.
"We find that it belongs to the majority class of normal type Ia supernovae," said Dr Krause.
"An exciting opportunity now would be to use other [light echoes] to construct a three-dimensional spectroscopic view of the explosion."
The new measurements may also shed light on important, unsolved questions about how type Ia supernovae arise.
