A scientific team using data from an Alabama-led NASA telescope mission appears to have unlocked mysteries of a historic supernova so old Shakespeare may have seen it.

The exploded remains of supernova Tycho were discovered 450 years ago. Shakespeare would have been 8 years old then and could have seen the supernova some experts say citing an early passage in “Hamlet.” In the passage, palace guard Bernardo tells his fellow soldiers of “yond same star that’s westward from the pole (North Star)” appearing just before the ghost of the murdered king. That is the same direction this exploding supernova could have been seen.

Now, NASA says its Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) has helped scientists “uncover new information about the Tycho supernova remnant.” IXPE is a collaboration between NASA and the Italian Space Agency with partners and collaborators in 12 countries. It is led by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.

“As one of the so-called historical supernovae, Tycho was observed by humanity in the past and had a lasting social and even artistic impact,” said Dr. Riccardo Ferrazzoli, a researcher at the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics in Rome. “It’s exciting to be here, 450 years after its first appearance in the sky, to see this object again with new eyes and to learn from it.”

Ferrazzoli is the lead author of the newly published Tycho findings, which appear in the latest issue of “The Astrophysical Journal.” Those findings share new light on how supernovas like Tycho become “giant particle accelerator(s)” hurling particles out at speeds “closer to the speed of light than the most powerful particle accelerators on Earth.”

IXPE helped scientists “map the shape of Tycho’s magnetic field with unprecedented clarity and scale,” NASA said. The result is the closest scientists have come to the source of the “highly energetic” cosmic rays emitted by formations like these.

How energetic are those cosmic rays? The Tyco supernova blast “itself released as much energy as the Sun would put out over the course of 10 billion years,” NASA said. That’s why it was visible to the naked eye on Earth in 1572 when it was spotted and recorded.

Harvard astrophysicist Patrick Shane calls incredible process a “delicate dance between order and chaos.” And IXPE helps clarify that dance of “highly energetic particles … accelerated by supernova remnants.”