The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered colourful, previously unseen details in one of the most often viewed relics of an exploding star.
All that’s left of a star that exploded in a supernova is the brilliant dust and gas of Cassiopeia A, whose light first reached Earth 340 years ago. Many ground- and space-based telescopes have studied the celestial object since it is our galaxy’s youngest known supernova remnant.
The remnant of Cassiopeia A, 11,000 light-years away in the Cassiopeia constellation, is ten light-years long. Cas A, often called the remnant, provides information that helps researchers better understand star explosions.
To determine if the observatory’s infrared capabilities could detect anything previous telescopes missed, astronomers pointed the Webb telescope and its equipment towards the general direction of Cas A. Webb can observe otherwise invisible portions of the universe since infrared light is invisible to the human eye.
The principal investigator of the Webb programme who made the new observations, Danny Milisavljevic, an assistant professor at Purdue University, says that “Cas A gives the best opportunity to look at the debris field of an exploded star and conduct a sort of stellar autopsy to understand what type of star was there initially and how that star exploded.”
According to co-investigator Tea Temim, a research astronomer at Princeton University, “we see remarkable information that we haven’t been able to access before” compared to earlier infrared photos.
The human eye can see the remnant’s colours thanks to Webb’s new infrared image of Cas A that has been converted into visible light.
Warm dust is indicated by red and orange light on the remnant’s exterior, which results from material ejected from the star before it exploded, interacting with the gas and dust around it.
Bright pink light and characteristics that resemble clusters and knots can be seen inside the remnant’s bubble-like shape. This material, which contains heavy incandescent elements like argon, neon, and oxygen, originated from the star that bursts.
Researchers are especially intrigued by a vibrant green loop that runs down the right edge of the bubble. We gave it the moniker “Green Monster” in homage to Boston’s Fenway Park. If you look closely, it has tiny bubbles all over it,” Milisavljevic remarked. “The complexity and shape are unexpected and difficult to comprehend.”
The team is still working to determine the sources of each image’s various colours. Scientists can learn more about cosmic dust, the primary component of stars and planets, and how exploding stars release essential ingredients for life by studying relics like Cas A. We are reading our creation tale by comprehending how stars explode, Milisavljevic claimed. “I’ll spend the rest of my professional life attempting to comprehend what is contained in this data set.”
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