Light Echoes of Transients and Variables in the Local Universe

Abstract Astronomical light echoes, the time-dependent light scattered by dust in the vicinity of varying objects, have been recognized for over a century. Initially, their utility was thought to be confined to mapping out the three-dimensional distribution of interstellar dust. Recently, the discovery of spectroscopically useful light echoes around centuries-old supernovae in the Milky Way and the Large Magellanic Cloud has …