Historical records of re-explosions of supernovae

Abstract

Of the supernovae recorded in history, there are at least two for which re-explosions have been documented. One is the supernova which appeared on 1006 May 1 (Northern $\text{Song}$ Dynasty, Reign $\text{Jingde}$, Year 3) in the asterism $\text{Qiguan}$, south of the lunar mansion $\text{Di}$, which, after 10 years, in 1016 May (Reign $\text{Dazhongxiangfu}$, Year 9) was recorded to have “re-appeared”. The other is the object which appeared by the side of the asterism $\text{Tianjiang}$ of the (sixth) lunar mansion $\text{Wei}$ (the object known in the West as Kepler's supernova), and which after 60 years in 1664 was again recorded as undergoing an explosion. Therefore, for some type of supernovae, there should exist a mechanism of re-explosions.