James Webb Captured a Spectacular Photo of a Starburst

We are in the last days of 2023 and the countdown for 2024 continues. NASA and the First Lady of the United States, Dr. Jill Biden is working together on a “White House Advent Calendar” for the first time in history. One of the first images from the calendar comes from the James Webb Space Telescope. This image contains cosmic debris that we cannot see with the naked eye.

Stars live by converting various elements into other elements for several billion years, and when their nuclear fuel runs out, some collapse into themselves, some disappear with small explosions, and some scatter particles into space with spectacular explosions. We call these last ones supernovae.

The remnant of a dying star

The supernova named Cassiopeia A (Cas A) was observed with the NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) equipment on the James Webb Space Telescope. In fact, this supernova is one of the most studied structures by scientists, but it has never been examined this closely with NIRCam before. In April, the remains of the supernova were examined with Webb’s MIRI instrument.

The bright pink and orange images in the image form the inner shell of the supernova and consist of elements such as sulfur, argon, neon and oxygen. Although it is less colorful than the image taken with MIRI, it shows us something else: the ghost of the supernova. The nebular, bright background is actually synchrotron radiation. This electromagnetic radiation, which occurs as a result of the radial acceleration of charged particles, also shows the area that the supernova once occupied.