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APOD: Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A (2023 Dec 14)
Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2023 5:05 am
by APOD Robot
Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A
Explanation: Massive stars in our Milky Way Galaxy live spectacular lives. Collapsing from vast cosmic clouds, their nuclear furnaces ignite and create heavy elements in their cores. After only a few million years for the most massive stars, the
enriched material is blasted back into interstellar space where star formation can begin anew. The expanding debris cloud known as Cassiopeia A is an example of this final phase of the
stellar life cycle. Light from the supernova explosion that created this remnant would have been first
seen in planet Earth's sky about 350 years ago, although it took that light 11,000 years to reach us.
This sharp NIRCam image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows the still hot filaments and knots in the supernova remnant. The whitish, smoke-like outer shell of the expanding blast wave is about 20 light-years across, while the
bright speck near center is a neutron star, the incredibly dense, collapsed remains of the massive stellar core. Light echoes from the massive star's cataclysmic explosion are also
identified in Webb's detailed image of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A.
Re: APOD: Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A (2023 Dec 14)
Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2023 5:32 am
by American_CItizen
What are the purple bubbles? Any idea?
https://i.ibb.co/LSzBhCZ/Screenshot-20231213-212535.png
Seems intriguing to me.
Re: APOD: Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A (2023 Dec 14)
Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2023 1:39 pm
by Christian G.
Supernova remnants are tantalizing cosmic teases, we missed the best part of the show!
Re: APOD: Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A (2023 Dec 14)
Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2023 3:22 pm
by Roy
We have very little idea of the actual colors, since the image is Near Infra Red. We are also looking through a 20 light-year diameter bubble from outside, so shape and position of anything is somewhat notional.
Re: APOD: Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A (2023 Dec 14)
Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2023 4:00 pm
by johnnydeep
They
could just be circular features that your brain picked out from all the noise, or they could be actual bubbles, or perhaps even something more than that. Hard to say, but why they all seem to be concentrated in that area (as well as some more toward the lower left of the ones you pointed out) is somewhat curious.
Re: APOD: Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A (2023 Dec 14)
Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2023 4:25 pm
by p1gnone@gmail.com
350 yr old supernova remnant, 20 ly wide spread of ejecta in the shell of the expanding blast wave. I'm guessing the spread began long before 350 yrs prior, belching forth in anticipation? How long before? hence, moving how fast?
Re: APOD: Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A (2023 Dec 14)
Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2023 7:07 pm
by VictorBorun
JWST team writes that this circular spots is all that's left of the Green Monster's spotted skin, seen in MIRI
Please who can make a good job of fitting MIRI to NIRCAM?
In the least we would be able to see if the neutron star is inside a coil of that "green" (10 micrometers in the range of MIR) snake
Re: APOD: Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A (2023 Dec 14)
Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2023 7:18 pm
by AVAO
VictorBorun wrote: ↑Thu Dec 14, 2023 7:07 pm
Please who can make a good job of fitting MIRI to NIRCAM?
https://esawebb.org/images/comparisons/weic2330/
Re: APOD: Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A (2023 Dec 14)
Posted: Fri Dec 15, 2023 3:44 am
by VictorBorun
wow
Now I can fit X-ray with neutron star labelled… and it can't be seen in either NIRCAM nor MIRI
![Sad :(](./images/smilies/icon_sad.gif)
And it is not inside the Green Monster
...
X-ray versus MIRI
X-ray versus NIRCAM