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A star explodes and turns inside out

A team of scientists has mapped the distribution of elements in the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A in unprecedented detail.
By Chandra X-ray Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts Published: March 30, 2012
cas_a
A new study suggests the massive star that became the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant may have turned inside out as it exploded. Comparing a "before" artist's illustration with an "after" image from Chandra shows key elements are in different areas following the explosion. These results are based on a million seconds of Chandra observing time. Credit: Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss; X-ray: NASA/CXC/GSFC/U.Hwang & J.Laming
A new X-ray study of the remains of an exploded star indicates that the supernova that disrupted the massive star may have turned it inside out in the process. Using long observations of Cassiopeia A (Cas A), a team of scientists has mapped the distribution elements in the supernova remnant in unprecedented detail. This information shows where the different layers of the pre-supernova star are located 300 years after the explosion, and provides insight into the nature of the supernova.

The artist’s illustration shows a simplified picture of the inner layers of the star that formed Cas A just before it exploded, with the predominant concentrations of different elements represented by different colors: iron in the core (blue), overlaid by sulfur and silicon (green), then magnesium, neon, and oxygen (red). The image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory on the right uses the same color scheme to show the distribution of iron, sulfur, and magnesium in the supernova remnant. The data show that the distributions of sulfur and silicon are similar, as are the distributions of magnesium and neon. Oxygen, which according to theoretical models is the most abundant element in the remnant, is difficult to detect because the X-ray emission characteristic of oxygen ions is strongly absorbed by gas along the line of sight to Cas A, and because almost all the oxygen ions have had all their electrons stripped away.

A comparison of the illustration and the Chandra element map shows clearly that most of the iron, which according to theoretical models of the pre-supernova was originally on the inside of the star, is now located near the outer edge of the remnant. Surprisingly, there is no evidence from X-ray (Chandra) or infrared (Spitzer Space Telescope) observations for iron near the center of the remnant, where it was formed. Also, much of the silicon and sulfur, as well as the magnesium, are now found toward the outer edges of the still-expanding debris. The distribution of the elements indicates that a strong instability in the explosion process somehow turned the star inside out.

This latest work, which builds on earlier Chandra observations, represents the most detailed study ever made of X-ray emitting debris in Cas A or any other supernova remnant resulting from the explosion of a massive star. It is based on a million seconds of Chandra observing time. Tallying up what they see in the Chandra data, astronomers estimate that the total amount of X-ray emitting debris has a mass just over three times that of the Sun. This debris was found to contain about 0.13 times the mass of the Sun in iron, 0.03 in sulfur, and only 0.01 in magnesium.

The researchers found clumps of almost pure iron, indicating that this material must have been produced by nuclear reactions near the center of the pre-supernova star, where the neutron star was formed. That such pure iron should exist was anticipated because another signature of this type of nuclear reaction is the formation of the radioactive nucleus titanium-44 (Ti-44). Emission from Ti-44, which is unstable with a half-life of 63 years, has been detected in Cas A with several high-energy observatories, including the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, BeppoSAX, and the International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL).
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5 stars
STEPHEN ARMSTRONG from CALIFORNIA said:
I believe that since iron is much heavier than the other elements in the blast, it would be slowed the least by interstellar interference modes, and would, therefore, be the first to reach the outer fringes of the current blast configuration. It may, also, suggest that the iron core doesn't just "sit there" passively as the mass of the entire star impacts its collective surface simultaneously. The core may "actively" recoil the implosion wave that impacted its surface perfectly spherically. That incoming wave was travelling through less dense surrounding core shells. Once transferred to the solid iron core, its speed would have jumped dramitically as it continued to the geometric center of the iron core itself, thus amplifying the rebound from the focal point at the dead center of the iron core. This amplification is too much for the strong force to bear, and some of the iron converts to pure energy as the atoms disintegrate. Since this wave, now travelling entirely within the entire core, was absorbed by the core at a faster rate than which the collapsing shells could fall into the star's gravity well towards the core boundary, the core would effectively "siphon off" incoming collisional energy momentarily, creating a gap, right at and inside the core/outer shells boundary. This would allow for a momentary pause in the build up of catastrophic pressures which would appear as the "stall of infall" current models predict. But it's not really a stall; it's where the supernova gets its kick. Remember that the incoming shock wave from the collapsing shells already impacted the shrunken iron core, and that wave raced inwards towards the center of the iron core faster than the original wave because of density increase. Then THAT sperical wave imploded into the center of the iron core, releasing pure energy rebounding into the dense medium, and meeting more infalling wavefronts as it races back out of the iron core. These interactions DESTROY the iron core, pulverizing it into Jupiter-sized granules. And these actions all take place as the outer shells are STILL FALLING inwards, in apparent slow-motion, compared to the faster travel time of wavefronts in the denser medium of the iron core. But, those outer shells are collapsing with ACCELERATION, because the "front" of the incoming wave front gets sucked into the iron core FASTER than it could fall! The remaining outer shells obligingly increase their collapse rate for a time. Then, like a grenade that was placed into a vacuum bottle, the supernova transaction takes place. The outer layers collapsing with acceleration into a seeming black hole. The inner core detonating perfectly as pure energy from the absolute center of the iron core turns the core into an expanding bubble from within. When this irresistable bubble meets the immovable inbound shells, we have two systems which are accelerating yet opposing. The iron cannot be stopped on its journey outward, and the outer shells have yet to cease falling inward by sheer momentum. Wherever the two meet, elements heavier than iron are produced, and should be currently located approx. 20% of the distance from the current outer edge and the geometric center of the blast.
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