SUMMARY: NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory has taken a new photograph of SN 1006; a supernova that appeared in the sky in 1006, and blazed more brightly than Venus. We now know that SN 1006 announced the death of a star located approximately 7,000 light years from Earth. It's likely that a white dwarf star was siphoning matter away from a companion star. When its mass exceeded the limit of stability, it exploded.

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I wonder how they came up with the age of the Supernova? Anybody?

Maybe from records of visual reports at the time. If it was brighter than Venus, some people would have noticed it and found it remarkable.

The next nearby supernova will tell us a lot. Our neutrino detectors will probably record thousands of neutrinos. We should be able to deduce a lot from their energy spectrum. Hopefully, we'll also learn something from the pattern of gravitational waves. More good observatories will mean more information.

The Chinese recorded it.

The one recorded by the Chinese was that of 1054!

They know from the Doppler speed and the size how old it is. Provided they have a good estimate of the distance, too!

This article mentions some of the involved history.

Can anything be deduced by the symmetry of the explosion or are there too many unknown variables to draw conclusions? If this was a binary system, what might have happened to the nova's partner?

is what was the 'limit of stability'; do we know there is a limit or is this conjecture? I read that white dwarfs can reform into stable entities after explosion so do we know if this was a binary for sure?