The Distance to the S147 Supernova Remnant

In the absence of a parallax distance to a pulsar or a surviving binary in a supernova remnant (SNR), distances to Galactic SNRs are generally very uncertain. However, by combining Gaia data with wide-field, multifiber echelle spectroscopy, it is now possible to obtain accurate distances to many SNRs with limited extinction by searching for the appearance of high-velocity Ca ii or Na i absorption lines in hot stars as a function of distance. We demonstrate this for the SNR S147 using the spectra of 259 luminous blue stars. We obtain a median distance of 1.37 kpc (1.30–1.47 kpc at 90% confidence), which is consistent with the median parallax distance to the pulsar of 1.46 kpc (1.12–2.10 kpc at 90% confidence) but with significantly smaller uncertainties. Our distance is also consistent with the distance to the candidate unbound binary companion in this SNR, HD 37424 at a photogeometric distance of 1.45 kpc (1.40–1.50 kpc at 1 σ ). The presence of high-velocity absorption lines is correlated with the H α /O [ iii ] emission-line flux of the SNR but not with the radio flux.