Scientists are able to look at the remains of an exploded star thanks to NASA space telescopes, providing new insight into how a star goes supernova.
In conjunction with Caltech, NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) is able to give researchers a better look into an exploded star, specifically Cassiopeia A, reports CNET. The star went supernova about 11,000 years ago and the light reached Earth about 1671.
Scientists reported their findings in the journal Nature and noted that before a star explodes, the insides of it "slosh" around. Principal investigator of NuSTAR Fiona Harrison said in a statement, "Our new results show how the explosion's heart, or engine, is distorted, possibly because the inner regions literally slosh around before detonating."
Cas A, which was about eight times the size of the sun and has spread out about 10 light years in space since it exploded, has been under observation for years, but NuSTAR is equipped with high-energy X-ray detectors which help scientists to see the radioactive elements from the star's remains.
According to CNN, the lead author Brian Grefenstette, of the California Institute of Technology commented, "Until we had NuSTAR, we couldn't see down to the core of the explosion."
With the telescope array, scientists hope it will give them a better understanding of why a star goes supernova.
Grefenstette noted that people should care about the research because a supernova from 5 billion years ago helped create Earth. "People should care about supernova explosions because that's where all the stuff that makes us comes from."
He added, "All of the iron in your blood and calcium in your bones and teeth, and gold in your wedding band, that all comes from the center of a supernova explosion."
image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/NASA/JPL-Caltech
