Death
Becomes
Her
This
stunning
false-color
picture
shows off
the many
sides of
the
supernova
remnant
Cassiopeia
A, which
is made up
of images
taken by
three of
NASA's
Great
Observatories,
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
Observatory
are green
and blue.
Located
10,000
light-years
away in
the
northern
constellation
Cassiopeia,
Cassiopeia
A is the
remnant of
a once
massive
star that
died in a
violent
supernova
explosion
325 years
ago. It
consists
of a dead
star,
called a
neutron
star, and
a
surrounding
shell of
material
that was
blasted
off as the
star died.
The
neutron
star can
be seen in
the
Chandra
data as a
sharp
turquoise
dot in the
center of
the
shimmering
shell.
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More: http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/starsgalaxies/spitzer-060905.html |