The remnant’s expansion shell has an estimated temperature of 50 million degrees Fahrenheit and is expanding at 4,000 to 6,000 km/s. The progenitor star had an estimated mass 15 to 20 times that of the Sun. The clouds of expelled material would have cloaked the light of the supernova event. of Ariz./STScI/CXC/SAOĪnother possible explanation for no recorded sightings of the progenitor supernova is that the progenitor star was exceptionally massive and had ejected much of its outer layers before going supernova. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/CXC/SAO Animation: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. Infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope are colored red visible data from the Hubble Space Telescope are yellow and X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory are green and blue. It is made up of images taken by three of NASA’s Great Observatories, using three different wavebands of light. This stunning false-color picture shows off the many sides of the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A. Its position, as given by Flamsteed, is within 10 arcminutes of the Cas A radio source. 3 Cassiopeiae is a hypothethical star, one that doesn’t correspond to any star observed today. The supernova, however, may have been recorded by the English astronomer John Flamsteed, who noted a sixth magnitude star on Augand recorded it as 3 Cassiopeiae. There are no recorded sightings of the supernova event, likely due to its light having been absorbed by interstellar dust. It can also be observed in infrared and X-ray wavelengths and appears as a ring of expanding material about 5 arcminutes across.Ĭassiopeia A is the remnant of a supernova that first became visible from Earth about 300 years ago. The remnant can be seen in visible light with amateur telescopes, starting with 9.25-inch instruments with filters. It lies at an approximate distance of 11,000 light years from Earth and has a diameter of about 10 light years. Cassiopeia A (Cas A) is a supernova remnant located in the constellation Cassiopeia.
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