Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

James Webb captures stunning image of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A

Georgina Torbet
By

A stunning new image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows a famous supernova remnant called Cassiopeia A, or Cas A. When a massive star comes to the end of its life and explodes in a huge outpouring of light and energy called a supernova, it leaves behind a dense core that can become a black hole or a neutron star. But that’s not all that remains after a supernova: the explosion can leave its mark on nearby clouds of dust and gas that are formed into intricate structures.

The image of Cas A was taken using Webb’s MIRI instrument, which looks in the mid-infrared range. Located 11,000 light-years away, Cassiopeia A is one of the brightest objects in the sky in the radio wavelength, and is also visible in the optical, infrared, and X-ray wavelengths. To see the different features picked up in different wavelengths, you can look at the slider comparison of the Webb infrared image alongside a Hubble visible light image of the same object.

Cassiopeia A (Cas A) is a supernova remnant located about 11,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia. It spans approximately 10 light-years. This new image uses data from Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) to reveal Cas A in a new light.This image combines various filters with the color red assigned to 25.5 microns (F2550W), orange-red to 21 microns (F2100W), orange to 18 microns (F1800W), yellow to 12.8 microns (F1280W), green to 11.3 microns (F1130W), cyan to 10 microns (F1000W), light blue to 7.7 microns (F770W), and blue to 5.6 microns (F560W). The data comes from general observer program 1947.
Cassiopeia A (Cas A) is a supernova remnant located about 11,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia. It spans approximately 10 light-years. This new image uses data from Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) to reveal Cas A in a new light.  IMAGE: NASA, ESA, CSA, Danny Milisavljevic (Purdue University), Tea Temim (Princeton University), Ilse De Looze (UGent) IMAGE PROCESSING: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

With Webb’s high sensitivity, new details are visible in this remnant. “Compared to previous infrared images, we see incredible detail that we haven’t been able to access before,” said Tea Temim of Princeton University, a co-investigator of the Webb observation program, which took the image, in a statement.

Recommended Videos

By studying these details, astronomers can learn about the aftereffects of supernovae — which is particularly important because these explosions create many of the heavier elements in our universe such as silicon, sulfur, and iron. “Cas A represents our best opportunity to look at the debris field of an exploded star and run a kind of stellar autopsy to understand what type of star was there beforehand and how that star exploded,” said principal investigator Danny Milisavljevic of Purdue University.

Related

“By understanding the process of exploding stars, we’re reading our own origin story,” said Milisavljevic. “I’m going to spend the rest of my career trying to understand what’s in this data set.”

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Space Writer
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
James Webb photographs two potential exoplanets orbiting white dwarfs
Illustration of a cloudy exoplanet and a disk of debris orbiting a white dwarf star.

Even though scientists have now discovered more than 5,000 exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system, it's a rare thing that any telescope can take an image of one of these planets. That's because they are so small and dim compared to the stars that they orbit around that it's easier to detect their presence based on their effects on the star rather than them being detected directly.

However, thanks to its exceptional sensitivity, the James Webb Space Telescope was recently able to image two potential exoplanets orbiting around small, cold cores of dead stars called white dwarfs directly.

Read more
See 19 gorgeous face-on spiral galaxies in new James Webb data
This collection of 19 face-on spiral galaxies from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope in near- and mid-infrared light is at once overwhelming and awe-inspiring. Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) captured millions of stars in these images. Older stars appear blue here, and are clustered at the galaxies’ cores. The telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) observations highlight glowing dust, showing where it exists around and between stars – appearing in shades of red and orange. Stars that haven’t yet fully formed and are encased in gas and dust appear bright red.

A stunning new set of images from the James Webb Space Telescope illustrates the variety of forms that exist within spiral galaxies like our Milky Way. The collection of 19 images shows a selection of spiral galaxies seen from face-on in the near-infrared and mid-infrared wavelengths, highlighting the similarities and differences that exist across these majestic celestial objects.

“Webb’s new images are extraordinary,” said Janice Lee of the Space Telescope Science Institute, in a statement. “They’re mind-blowing even for researchers who have studied these same galaxies for decades. Bubbles and filaments are resolved down to the smallest scales ever observed, and tell a story about the star formation cycle.”

Read more
James Webb snaps a stunning stellar nursery in a nearby satellite galaxy
This image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope features an H II region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way. This nebula, known as N79, is a region of interstellar atomic hydrogen that is ionised, captured here by Webb’s Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI).

A stunning new image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows a star-forming region in the nearby galaxy of the Large Magellanic Cloud. Our Milky Way galaxy has a number of satellite galaxies, which are smaller galaxies gravitationally bound to our own, the largest of which is the Large Magellanic Cloud or LMC.

The image was taken using Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument or MIRI, which looks at slightly longer wavelengths than its other three instruments which operate in the near-infrared. That means MIRI is well suited to study things like the warm dust and gas found in this region in a nebula called N79.

Read more