This video takes the viewer on a journey to Cassiopeia A (Cas A), a supernova remnant located about 11 000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia. It spans approximately 10 light-years. This new image uses data from Webb’s Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI) to reveal Cas A in a new light.

On the remnant’s exterior, particularly at the top and left, lie curtains of material appearing orange and red that are due to emission from warm dust. This marks where ejected material from the exploded star is ramming into surrounding circumstellar material.

Interior to this outer shell lie mottled filaments of bright pink studded with clumps and knots. This represents material from the star itself, and likely shines by the light produced by a mix of heavy elements and dust emission. The stellar material can also be seen as fainter wisps near the cavity’s interior.

A loop represented in green extends across the right side of the central cavity. Its shape and complexity are unexpected and challenging for scientists to understand.

Supernovae like the one that formed Cas A are crucial for life as we know it. They spread elements like the calcium we find in our bones and the iron in our blood across interstellar space, seeding new generations of stars and planets. The Chandra data indicate that the supernova that produced Cas A has churned out prodigious amounts of key cosmic ingredients.

Cas A has dispersed about 10,000 Earth masses worth of sulfur alone, and about 20,000 Earth masses of silicon. The iron in Cas A has the mass of about 70,000 times that of the Earth, and astronomers detect a whopping one million Earth masses worth of oxygen being ejected into space from Cas A, equivalent to about three times the mass of the Sun.

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, D. Milisavljevic (Purdue University), T. Temim (Princeton University), I. De Looze (UGent), J. DePasquale (STScI), ESA/Hubble, ESA/Webb, E. Slawik, N. Risinger, D. de Martin (ESA/Webb), N. Bartmann (ESA/Webb), M. Zimani (ESA/Webb), Chandra X-ray Observatory (Data).

Music: Tonelabs – The Red North (www.tonelabs.com)

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