Pages

Monday, November 18, 2013

Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A


Cassiopeia A: A supernova remnant located about 10,000 light years from Earth.

This new version of Chandra's image of the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant has been specially processed to show with better clarity the appearance of Cas A in different bands of X-rays. This will aid astronomers in their efforts to reconstruct details of the supernova process such as the size of the star, its chemical makeup, and the explosion mechanism. The color scheme used in this image is the following: low-energy X-rays are red, medium-energy ones are green, and the highest-energy X-rays detected by Chandra are colored blue.

Scale: Image is 8.91 arcmin across (about 29 light years).

Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO

Note: For more information, see Cassiopeia A: Exploring the Third Dimension of Cassiopeia A.

No comments: