NASA has actually launched a brand-new picture of supernova residue Cassiopeia A (Cas A) taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). JWST utilized its Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) to image Cas A in a various method, regardless of it being amongst the most well-studied supernova residues in the universes.
[Related: An amateur astronomer spotted a new supernova remarkably close to Earth.]
Cas A has to do with 11,000 light-years far from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia. It is made from the remains of enormous star that astronomers think blew up about 340 years earlier. Ever since, NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope, and now retired Spitzer Space Telescope put together a multiwavelength image of the remains of the outstanding surge. JWST allowed astronomers to observe Cas A at various wavelengths. The image reveals the more detailed information of this broadening shell of product slamming into the gas that was shed by the star before it took off.
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In April, a picture of Cas A produced with JWST’s Mid-Infrared Instrument exposed some brand-new and unexpected functions in its inner shell. Astronomers are now checking out why much of these functions are likewise present in the brand-new image taken with NIRCam,