Radiation processes must be included in the treatment of the expanding shock front caused by a supernova explosion. This result differs from that of Shkiovskii (1962), who neglected radiation by collisional excitation of atoms other than hydrogen. For a typical Type II supernova, expanding into an interstellar gas with a density of one atom per cm3, radiation by 0 viii ions will cool the exploding shell appreciably when the radius of the exploding shell is 30 pc. Type II supernova shells emit X-rays by the mechanism of free-free emission in sufficient quantity to explain one of the two sources observed by Friedman (1963); other expected observable properties of such objects are listed.
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Carl Heiles (1964) studied this question.