CASSIOPEIA A RESOURCES

What happens when a star explodes as a supernova?

These resources explain what we know about supernovae, the powerful and catastrophic explosions that occur at the end of certain types of massive stars’ lifecycles.

Cassiopeia A, or Cas A, is a core collapse or Type II supernova. It is one of the youngest known supernova remnants, with the explosion estimated to have occurred about 340 years ago from our perspective. Stars, like the one Cas A orginated from, exhaust their nuclear fuel and eventually undergo a gravitational collapse. The sudden collapse results in a powerful shockwave that propagates through the star, causing it to explode. The core of the star can collapse further, forming either a neutron star or a black hole, while the outer layers of gas and dust are expelled into space. That gas and dust contain elements like sulfur, oxygen, argon, and neon.

Scientists have studied Cassiopeia A using various telescopes:

• The Chandra X-ray Observatory has conducted multiple observations of Cas A, providing valuable insights into its neutron star, the details of the explosion, and the composition of the debris ejected into space.
• NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has imaged the complex and intricate structure of the star’s shattered fragments.
• NASA’s NuSTAR created a map of radioactive material in Cas A, revealing how shock waves likely rip apart massive dying stars.
• NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope helped scientists understand Cas A’s outer shell of warm dust and the light echoes from the original explosion in the clouds surrounding the remnant.
• NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has provided new high-definition images of the remnant, revealing details about its structures of gas and glowing dust.

Explore Cas A through the data collected by these telescopes and in different formats using your senses of sight, sound, and touch.