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Cassiopeia A: Death Becomes Her

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Collection: NASA Spitzer Space Telescope Collection Title: Cassiopeia A: Death Becom es Her Description: This stunning false-color picture shows off the m any sides of the supernova rem nant Cassiopeia A. It is m ade up of im ages tak en by three of NASA's Great O bservatories, using three different wavebands of light. 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 O bservatory are green and blue. Located 10,000 lightyears away in the northern constellation Cassiopeia, Cassiopeia A is the rem nant of a once m assive star that died in a violent supernova ex plosion 325 years ago. It consists of a dead star, called a neutron star, and a surrounding shell of m aterial that was blasted off as the star died. This rem nant m ark s the m ost recent supernova in our Milk y W ay galax y, and is one of the m ost studied objects in the sk y. Each Great O bservatory highlights different characteristics of this celestial orb. W hile Spitzer reveals warm dust in the outer shell about a few hundred degrees Kelvin (80 degrees Fahrenheit) in tem perature, Hubble sees the delicate filam entary structures of hot gases about 10,000 degrees Kelvin (18,000 degrees Fahrenheit). Chandra probes unim aginably hot gases, up to about 10 m illion degrees Kelvin (18 m illion degrees Fahrenheit). These ex trem ely hot gases were created when ejected m aterial from Cassiopeia A sm ashed into surrounding gas and dust. Chandra can also see Cassiopeia A's neutron star (turquoise dot at center of shell). Blue Chandra data were acquired using broadband X-rays (low to high energies); green Chandra data correspond to interm ediate energy Xrays; yellow Hubble data were tak en using a 900 nanom eter-wavelength filter, and red Spitzer

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filter, and red Spitzer data are from the telescope's 24-m icron detector. Release Date: 2005/06/09 Press Release: NASA's Spitzer Captures Echo of Dead Star's Rum blings [ http://www.spitzer.] Release Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/O . Krause (Steward O bservatory) Image Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / O . Krause (Steward O bservatory) Object name: Cassiopeia A Object type: Supernova Rem nant Position (J2000): *RA: *23h23m 24.00s *Dec: *58d48m 0.00s Distance: 11,000 light-years Constellation: Cassiopeia Wavelength: 24 m icrons Image scale: 55x 12 arcm in Observers: O liver Krause (Steward O bservatory) George H. Riek e (Steward O bservatory) Stephan M. Birk m ann (Max -Planck -Institut fur Astronom ie) Em eric Le Floc'h (Steward O bservatory) Karl D. Gordon (Steward O bservatory) Eiichi Egam i (Steward O bservatory) John Bieging (Steward O bservatory) John P. Hughes (Rutgers University) Erick Young (Steward O bservatory) Joannah L. Hinz (Steward O bservatory) Sascha P. Q uanz (Max Planck -Institut fur Astronom ie) Dean C. Hines (Space Science Institute) Instrument: MIPS Exposure Date: 20 Novem ber 2003 & 2 Decem ber 2004 Exposure Time: 80 sec per sk y position Orientation: North is 86 deg CCW from up Related links: Hubble Space Telescope [ http://www.stsci.ed] Chandra X-Ray O bservatory [ http://chandra.harv] facet_what: Spitzer Space Telescope facet_what: MIPS facet_what: Planck facet_what: Cassiopeia facet_what: Hubble Space Telescope (HST) facet_what: Chandra X-Ray

Chandra X-Ray O bservatory (CXO ) facet_where: Milk y W ay Galax y facet_where: Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) facet_where: W ashington, D.C. facet_when: Decem ber 2004 facet_when: 20 Novem ber 2003 facet_when_year: 2003 facet_when_year: 2004 Image #: ssc2005-14c original url: http://sscws1.ipac. UID: SPD-SPITZ-ssc2005-14 c

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