The discovery of the nearest young supernova remnant RX J0852.0-4622 / GRO J0852-4642 in the Galaxy by ROSAT and COMPTEL has been reported recently .
Age and distance are determined to \sim 680 years and \sim 200 pc by the X-ray diameter and the \gamma -ray line flux of radioactive ^ { 44 } Ti .
Here we discuss the implications of the X-ray spectra and of the fact that 1.8 MeV \gamma -ray line emission from the decay of ^ { 26 } Al has been measured from the Vela region with a certain fraction possibly associated with the new SNR .
We estimate an uncertainty of the age of \pm 100 yrs for a fixed yield of ^ { 44 } Ti .
The highest values of ^ { 44 } Ti yield provided by current supernova explosion models give worst case upper limits of 1100 yrs for the age and of 500 pc for the distance .
Also the unknown ionization stage of ^ { 44 } Ti adds to the uncertainty of age and distance which is at most another 35 % on top .
Both the energy balance compiled for the remnant and yield predictions for ^ { 44 } Ti and ^ { 26 } Al by supernova models favour a core-collapse event .
Two point sources have been found in the vicinity of the explosion center , either one of these might be the neutron star left by the supernova .
If there is a neutron star the X-ray count rates of the two point sources provide an upper limit of the blackbody surface temperature , which is very unlikely to exceed 3 \times 10 ^ { 5 } K. The supernova might have been observed some 700 \pm 150 yrs ago , but based on the data of SN 1181 , e.g. , there is a realistic chance that it has been missed if the supernova was sub-luminous .