AST-1002 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Nasa Infrared Telescope Facility, Sidereus Nuncius, Space Shuttle Columbia
Document Summary
Explanation: cosmic wreckage from the detonation of a massive star is the subject of this official first image from nasa"s chandra x-ray observatory. The supernova remnant, known as cassiopeia a, was produced when a star exploded around 300 years ago in this northern sky constellation. It is revealed here in unprecedented detail in the light of x-rays - photons with thousands of times the energy of visible light. The tantalizing bright speck near the bubble"s center could well be the dense, remnant of the stellar core collapsed to form a newborn neutron star. Optics is the study of instruments that can change the direction in which light travels. Light travels at different speeds in different media, (such as vacuum, air, glass, ) and attains its maximum speed of c=300,000 km/s in vacuum. In air light travels slightly slower than this, while in glass and water light travels slower still.