James Webb Space Telescope gives stargazers inside, detailed look at exploded star

The James Webb Space Telescope continues to give stargazers a detailed look into the void of space.

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This time NASA has released a detailed look at the inside of an exploded star, CNN reported.

The star exploded about 10,000 years ago, making the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A which is about 11,000 lightyears away from Earth and located in the Cassiopeia constellation.

Now, the new images of the remnant are giving scientists a chance to see what happens when a star explodes by letting them observe features that have never been seen by other telescopes.

Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera, or NIRCam, gives scientists the ability to see the remnant in various wavelengths, producing the detail in the images. Earlier, Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument, or MIRI, had taken images of Cassiopeia A in April, Smithsonian Magazine reported. They looked different than the latest ones, with features appearing in one version but invisible in others, according to CNN.

In the newest photos, there are flashes of pink and orange in the remnant’s inner shell that correspond to various elements that were released when the star exploded, including oxygen, argon, neon and sulfur. There is also dust and molecules that, when combined with the gasses, are the building blocks of new stars and planets, CNN reported.

Danny Milisavljevic, a Purdue University astronomer who led the research team, said, “We can now see how the dying star absolutely shattered when it exploded, leaving filaments akin to tiny shards of glass behind.”

Cassiopeia A’s light first reached Earth about three and a half centuries ago. It is considered the youngest supernova remnant known in the Milky Way.

It measures about 10 lightyears across, or about 60 trillion miles. A light-year is 5.88 trillion miles, or how far light travels in a year, according to NASA.