Supernova Remnants: Types and Evolution

Although only a small fraction of stars end their lives as supernovae, all supernovae leave behind a supernova remnant (SNR), an expanding shock wave that interacts with the surrounding medium, heating the gas and seeding the cosmos with elements forged in the progenitor. In this chapter, we introduce the basic properties of galactic and extragalactic SNRs (section “Introduction”). We summarize how SNRs evolve throughout their life cycles over the course of ∼106 years (section “Evolution of Supernova Remnants”). We discuss the various morphological types of SNRs and discuss the emission processes at various wavelengths (section “Types of Supernova Remnants”).