Cosmic Ornament of Gas and Dust: Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A

Ssc2007-20b_sm
spitzer_ssc2007-20b December 20, 2007

Creator: Spitzer Space Telescope, Pasadena, CA, USA

Image Source: http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/images/1723-ssc2007-20b-Cosmic-Ornament-of-Gas-and-Dust-Supernova-Remnant-Cas-A

This beautiful bulb might look like a Christmas ornament but it is the blown-out remains of a stellar explosion, or supernova. The remains, called Cassiopeia A, are shown here in an infrared composite from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Silicon gas is blue and argon gas is green, while red represents about 10,000 Earth masses worth of dust. Yellow shows areas where red and green overlap.

The fact that the red and green do overlap indicates that this supernova is synthesizing dust and gas together. This is the smoking gun indicating that supernovae were significant suppliers of fresh dust in the very early universe -- something that was hard to demonstrate prior to the Spitzer observations.

The data for these images were taken by Spitzer's infrared spectrograph, which splits light apart to reveal the fingerprints of molecules and elements. In total, Spitzer collected separate "spectra" at more than 1,700 positions across Cassiopeia A. Astronomers then created maps from this massive grid of data, showing the remnant in a multitude of infrared colors.

Image Use Policy: Public Domain

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Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
Cassiopeia A Cas A
Subject - Milky Way
Nebula » Type » Supernova Remnant

Distance

Universescale1
11,000 light years

Position Details

Ssc2007-20b_sm
Position (ICRS)
RA = 23h 23m 25.7s
DEC = 58° 49’ 12.9”
Orientation
North is 0.2° CCW
Field of View
8.0 x 8.0 arcminutes
Constellation
Cassiopeia

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Arrow_left_blue Spitzer (IRS) Infrared -
Arrow_left_green Spitzer (IRS) Infrared -
Arrow_left_red Spitzer (IRS) Infrared -
Image constructed from specific wavelengths extracted from 1,700 IRS spectra
Spectrum_xray1
Arrow_top_blue
Arrow_top_green
Arrow_top_red