Death Becomes Her

This stunning false-color picture shows off the many sides of the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, which is made up of images taken by three of NASA's Great Observatories, using three different wavebands of light. Infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope are colored red; visible data from the Hubble Space Telescope are yellow; and X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory are green and blue.

Located 10,000 light-years away in the northern constellation Cassiopeia, Cassiopeia A is the remnant of a once massive star that died in a violent supernova explosion 325 years ago. It consists of a dead star, called a neutron star, and a surrounding shell of material that was blasted off as the star died. The neutron star can be seen in the Chandra data as a sharp turquoise dot in the center of the shimmering shell.

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http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/starsgalaxies/spitzer-060905.html

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/CXC/SAO