Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/L. Rudnick (Univ. of Minn.)

Lighting up a Dead Star's Layers

This image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the scattered remains of an exploded star named Cassiopeia A. Spitzer's infrared detectors "picked" through these remains and found that much of the star's original layering had been preserved.

In this false-color image, the faint, blue glow surrounding the dead star is material that was energized by a shock wave, called the forward shock, which was created when the star blew up. The forward shock is now located at the outer edge of the blue glow. Stars are also seen in blue. Green, yellow and red primarily represent material that was ejected in the explosion and heated by a slower shock wave, called the reverse shock wave.

The picture was taken by Spitzer's infrared array camera and is a composite of 3.6-micron light (blue); 4.5-micron light (green); and 8.0-micron light (red).

About the Object	Object Name: Cassiopeia A Object Type: Supernova Remnant Position (J2000): RA: 23h23m24.00s Dec: +58d48m0.00s Distance: 11,000 light-years Constellation: Cassiopeia
About the Data	Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/L. Rudnick (University of Minnesota) Instrument: IRAC Wavelength: 3.6-micron light (blue); 4.5-micron light (green); and 8.0-micron light (red) Exposure Date: 20 November 2003 & 2 December 2004 Exposure Time: 80 sec per sky position Image Scale: 8.2 x 8.2 arcminutes Orientation: North is 35.5 deg counter-clockwise from up Release Date: 26 October 2006
Observers	Lawrence Rudnick (University of Minnesota) Jessica A. Ennis (University of Minnesota) William T. Reach (Spitzer Science Center/Caltech) J. D. Smith (Steward Observatory/ University of Arizona) Jeonghee Rho (Spitzer Science Center/Caltech) Tracey DeLaney (Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) Haley Gomez (School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Wales) Takashi Kozasa (Hokkaido University, Japan)

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