Objects in space are rather far away. The Moon is our closest celestial neighbor at nearly a quarter million miles from Earth, and the nearest star, our Sun, is 93 million miles away.
Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO
NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has observed Cas A many times over the 17 years it has been in operation. The aggregate amount of observing time is over two million seconds, which means there is a great deal of information to work with. Scientists can use this rich dataset to go beyond a static image and see it moving over time.A time-lapse movie of Chandra’s X-ray data was made by combining observations taken in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2007. Scientists can use this to measure the expansion velocity of the leading edge of the explosion’s outer blast wave. The researchers find that the velocity is about 11 million miles per hour. But that’s not all.By combining X-rays from Chandra with infrared data from another orbiting NASA observatory, the Spitzer Space Telescope, plus visible light information from telescopes on the ground, something special can be done. For the first time, a three-dimensional reconstruction of a supernova remnant was created using these data taken in different types of light.
I cannot even grasp the concept of something traveling at 11 million miles per hour. That's is incredible. That's nearly the speed of light and breaks the sound barrier. It's crazy to think of what a small scale the human brain focuses in on. Like we travel such slow speeds that 200 miles per hour is quick. Iy reminds me of time. How hard 2 billion years is to actually comprehend when we only live for a blink on that type of scale. 100 years is optimistic for most. Scale really is so important.