Chandra Release - November 15, 2013

Visual Description: Cassiopeia A

 In this Chandra X-ray Observatory image of the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant image, the colors are bright and vibrant, with a mix of pink, purple, blue, red, green, and yellow. The structure of this celestial object resembles an irregular sphere. This image showcases the aftermath of a massive explosion that occurred in the constellation Cassiopeia over 300 years ago. This version shows with better clarity the appearance of Cas A in different X-ray energy bands, which aid astronomers in their efforts to reconstruct details of the supernova process such as the size of the star, its chemical makeup, and the explosion mechanism. The color scheme used in this image is the following: low-energy X-rays are red, medium-energy ones are green, and the highest-energy X-rays detected by Chandra are colored blue.