What kind of star was the SN 1054 before it became a supernova?

What was its temperature?


What was its color?


What was its mass?


What was its volume?


Was it part of a binary star system?


Was it a variable star?|||Contrary to what the Wikipedia article claims, the characteristics of progenitor of the Crab Nebula have been derived with reasonable precision. It's a nice detective story: what killed the Crab Nebula star?





First of all, the Crab Nebula contains a fast rotating pulsar, so the supernova was a massive star SN, not a Type 1a. The existence of the pulsar points to a mass between 8 and 25 M_Sun.





Next, the chemical composition of Crab Nebula, is very well known because it is in a region of the sky where the Sun's corona passes before it. The latter act as an analyzing filter.





The composition that is found are the result of a star that is helium shell burning, with a thick convective layer and heavy mass loss. This is consistent with stars of mass around 9 or 10 M_Sun.





However, the estimated pulsar mass, plus the mass of the nebula that can be deduced from its luminosity and density, add up to only two thirds of that. Again proof of heavy pre-supernova mass loss.





To answer your questions: here is an evolution graph of such a star: http://www4.nau.edu/meteorite/Meteorite/鈥?/a>|||Progenitor of Crab Nebula - unknown. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1054|||Our sun is billions of years away from blowing up bud.