Like A Shiny, Round Ornament Ready To Be Placed In The Perfect Spot On The Holiday Tree, Supernova Remnant

Like a shiny, round ornament ready to be placed in the perfect spot on the holiday tree, supernova remnant Cassiopeia A gleams in a new image from the James Webb Space Telescope.

Webb’s high-resolution look at Cassiopeia A in the near-infrared is adding to the treasure trove of information from the telescope’s recent image taken in mid-infrared light.

The most noticeable colors in Webb’s near-infrared image are clumps of bright orange and light pink that make up the inner shell of the supernova remnant. These tiny knots, comprised of sulfur, oxygen, argon, and neon from the star itself, are only detectable by its Near-Infrared Camera’s exquisite resolution, and give researchers a hint at how the dying star shattered like glass when it exploded.

The outskirts of the main inner shell, which appear as a deep orange and red in the mid-infrared image, now look like smoke from a campfire in near-infrared. This marks where ejected material from the exploded star is ramming into surrounding gas and dust.

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, D. Milisavljevic (Purdue University), T. Temim (Princeton University), I. De Looze (University of Gent).