1704254746
To start your week off right, there is a great scientific or technical picture on our website every Monday. This time: the remains of an exploded star
The James Webb Space Telescope has been taking beautiful images of the universe for a year and a half. And in December it happened a few more times. One of these photos shows the remains of the supernova Cassiopeia A in great detail.
Cassiopeia A is a remnant of this exploded massive star about 11,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia. It is the youngest known remnant of a supernova in our galaxy, and the light from the explosion has been visible on our blue sphere for about 340 years.
Also read:
Gas cleats
This is not the first time Webb has photographed Cassiopeia A. In April He took a very detailed photo of it using his MIRI instrument using mid-infrared light. This time he used his NIRCam instrument to capture the supernova remnant using near-infrared light. This makes further details visible.
This time, Webb saw gas nuggets of sulfur, oxygen, argon and neon. These substances come from the exploded star and provide clues about what the explosion looked like. The gas clumps are the orange and pink areas in the photo.
Echoes Van from Supernova
Additionally, it appears as if smoke is also visible. At these locations, stellar material thrown away by the explosion collides with material that orbited the star before the explosion. This creates radiation that is visible as a kind of white smoke.
Finally, there is a series of light echoes, most clearly visible at the bottom right (see the uncropped photo below). The light from the explosion heated clouds of dust here. These clouds are now cooling again and glowing, so that you can see a kind of echo of the supernova.
The uncropped photo of Cassiopeia A.
Bron: Web telescope
Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; D. Milisavljevic (Purdue University), T. Temim (Princeton University), I. De Looze (Ghent University)
#Beautiful #remnants #echoes #exploded #star