‘Kaleidoscope of colors’: NASA releases stunning image of 300-year-old supernova remnant

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The US space agency Nasa has, in an Instagram post, shared the image of a 300-year-old remnant formed by the supernova explosion of a huge star located 11,000 light years from Earth. He also explained how the “Cassiopeia A” explosion was captured in all its glory using three observatories.

A supernova or star explosion is the largest explosion that occurs in space, according to the space agency’s website.

As NASA uploaded the image to Instagram, the comments section was inundated with people enjoying the beauty and fusion of hues that the space agency called a “kaleidoscope of color.” The post garnered over 1.3 million likes.

From calling it the most beautiful photograph they’ve ever seen to wishing it was visible in the sky, netizens simply loved the captivating image.

According to the post, the different colors in the image provide different details captured by each observatory, giving astronomers a holistic view of Cas A.

Blue and green are x-ray data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and it displays gases at around 10 million degrees Celsius. According to NASA, “This hot gas was probably created when material ejected from the supernova crashed into surrounding gas and dust at speeds of around 10 million miles per hour.”

The red color corresponds to infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope and it shows hot dust in the “outer shell with temperatures of around 10 degrees Celsius”. Yellow corresponds to optical data from NASA’s Hubble Telescope and shows “a delicate filamentary structure” of hot gases at “about 10,000 degrees Celsius”.

Blue and green are x-ray data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and it displays gases at around 10 million degrees Celsius. “This hot gas was probably created when material ejected from the supernova crashed into surrounding gas and dust at speeds of around 10 million miles per hour,” according to NASA.

“A comparison of the images should help astronomers better determine whether most of the dust in the rest of the supernova came from the massive star before it exploded, or from the rapidly expanding supernova ejected it,” the Nasa.



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