Chandra Release - November 15, 2006

Visual Description: Cassiopeia A

The Cassiopeia A supernova remnant image was captured by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The colors in this image are bright and vibrant, with a mix of pink, purple, blue, red, green, and yellow. The structure of this celestial object resembles that of an irregular sphere. This image showcases the aftermath of a massive explosion that occurred in the constellation Cassiopeia over 300 years ago. New analysis shows that this supernova remnant acts like a relativistic pinball machine by accelerating electrons to enormous energies. Blue, wispy arcs in the image show where the acceleration is taking place in an expanding shock wave generated by the explosion. Red and green regions show material from the destroyed star that has been heated to millions of degrees by the explosion.