Astronomy Picture of the Day -- Cas A: Optical and X-ray

NASA ^ | January 17, 2013 | (see photo credit)

[SunkenCiv]

Explanation: The aftermath of a cosmic cataclysm, supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A) is a comfortable 11,000 light-years away. Light from the Cas A supernova, the death explosion of a massive star, first reached Earth just 330 years ago. Still expanding, the explosion's debris cloud spans about 15 light-years near the center of this composite image. The scene combines color data of the starry field and fainter filaments of material at optical energies with image data from the orbiting NuSTAR X-ray telescope. Mapped to false colors, the X-ray data in blue hues trace the fragmented outer ring of the expanding shock wave, glowing at energies up to 10,000 times the energy of the optical photons.

[SunkenCiv]

[Credit: X-ray: NASA, JPL-Caltech, NuSTAR; Optical: Ken Crawford (Rancho Del Sol Obs.)]

[SunkenCiv]

join or quit list APoD 'blog post new APoD topic Astronomy Picture of the Day topic & keyword Astronomy Chat, Bloggers & keyword Science Chat, Bloggers & keyword NASA's APoD archive Calendar 1995-present APoD on your desktop

[left that other site]

Is Balrog in there?

Once again, Civ, thank you for the daily ping! :-)

[onyx]

Looks like a precious jewel!
Thanks so much, dearest SunkenCiv!

[TheOldLady]

Oh my! That is a lovely one, Mr. Civilizations. I see a very large bird, five light years’ wing span, flying inside the beautiful bubble.

I almost always go to the site and look at the largest version of the APOD that they have.

Thank you, dear.