The glowing gas and dust of Cassiopeia A is all that remains of a star that exploded in a supernova, and its light first reached Earth 340 years ago. It is the youngest supernova remnant known in our galaxy, which is why the celestial object has been studied by a multitude of ground and space telescopes.
Cassiopeia A is located 11,000 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia, and the remnant spans 10 light-years.
Insights from Cas A, as the remnant is known, allow scientists to learn more about how stellar explosions occur.
„Cas A represents our best opportunity to look at the debris field of an exploded star and perform a kind of stellar autopsy to understand what kind of star was there before and how that star explodedDanny Milisavljevic, assistant professor at Purdue University and principal investigator of the Webb program that captured the new observations, said in a statement.
„Compared to previous infrared images, we see incredible details that we have not been able to access beforeco-investigator Tea Temim, a research astronomer at Princeton University, said in a statement.
Webb’s new infrared image of Cas A was translated into visible light so that the human eye could see the colors of the remnant. The red and orange light on the outside of the remnant indicates hot dust, where material ejected from the star before exploding collides with the surrounding gas and dust.
Inside the bubble-like structure of the remnant, bright pink light can be seen, along with features that resemble clumps and knots. This material came from the exploded star and includes heavy glowing elements such as argon, neon and oxygen.
What else caught the researchers’ interest was a bright green loop along the right side of the bubble.
„I nicknamed him the Green Monster after Fenway Park in Boston. If you look closely, you’ll notice that it’s marked with what look like mini-bubblesMilisavljevic said. “The form and complexity are unexpected and difficult to understand.”
The team is still trying to understand the sources behind all the different colors in the image.
Studying remnants like Cas A can help scientists understand cosmic dust, a building block for stars and planets, and how exploding stars release elements crucial to life.
„By understanding the process of star explosion, we read our own origin storyMilisavljevic said. “I will spend the rest of my career trying to understand what is in this data set.”
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