Time Lapse Movie of the Cassiopeia A Supernova Remnant

A movie of observations of Cassiopeia A (Cas A) over eight years from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. After the time lapse sequence, the camera then zooms into three different areas of Cas A where evolution of different features can been seen. This movie - the first of its kind for a supernova remnant - reveals new details about the supernova explosion and its remnant seen today. (Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/D.Patnaude et al.)

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• space
• astronomy
• supernova

[poppyopi]

Here's some numbers on this. The blast (as we see it) is 300 years old. The star it happened to is 11,000 light years away (hence we're seeing an event that happened 11,000 years ago). The diameter of the cloud is now 10 light years across. This means that it is expanding at an average rate of about 12 million miles per hour (that's above 2% the speed of light) with 2 jets of debris travelling up to 32 million miles per hour. A great piece of time lapse over 7 years, if you think of the scale.

[narungga]

damn universe, you scary!

[oopoo64]

It's coming right for us!!!

[Spookaduke100]

Its gohan powering up. Takes about as long.

[rommelfcc]

nice!

[700007123]

1:17 it's dragon!

[malygosc]

lol

[popnstart]

Those are some damn mad molecules and they are gonna burn somethin' if it gets in their way. Hey Honey, grab the bag of marshmallows and a couple coat hangars.

[xxxKERNKRAFT400xxx]

beautiful colors

[pudgimelon]

@poppyopi Yeah, doesn't look like much to the uninformed, but when you consider the scale involved it's pretty frigg'n impressive that we're seeing ANY change at all in seven years.  Ten light years across in less than 300 years, HOLY CRAP that's FAST. For comparison, it would take our fastest rockets hundreds of thousands of years to fly across this thing. Dang, that's one BIG explosion.

[MaXG65]

AMAZING AND BEAUTIFUL!