Supernova is Exploding in the Wrong Direction

The new study shows that the powerful shock wave traveling through a gas cloud left the star’s death. The researchers discovered the shock wave is revving at various rates making one section tumble back toward the origin of the stellar explosion. The author calls it a reverse shock.

A Supernova constellation Cassiopeia is a gas cloud left behind, around 11,000 light-years from Earth. This makes it one of the closest Supernova remnants. The 16-light-year-wide nebula is made up of gas ejected before and during the explosion that blew the parent star apart. A shock wave from the blast is still reverberating through the gas, and theories show that it should be growing. The researchers added that this is not the current situation.

The researchers used X-ray photos taken by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, an orbiting telescope, to investigate the shock wave’s trajectory. The data showed that the shock wave’s western region was decreasing in the opposite direction. Thus resulting in reverse shock. The researchers also found that the shock waves are moving towards the center of the Supernova center. The average speed of the Supernova is 21.6 million km/h, making it one of the fastest shock waves.

An inner shell and an outer shell make up Cassiopeia A’s major expanding gas bands. The exterior and the inner shells represent half of the same shock wave. They travel at the same high speed in the same direction. In the western era, the two shells are moving in different directions. The outer shell continues to grow outward, and the inner shell moves towards the location. That contributed to the explosion of stars.