Chandra Discovers Relativistic Pinball Machine This
extraordinarily deep Chandra image shows Casseiopeia A (Cas A,
for short), the youngest supernova remnant in the Milky Way. New
analysis shows that this supernova remnant acts like a
relativistic pinball machine by accelerating electrons to
enormous energies. The blue, wispy arcs in the image show where
the acceleration is taking place in an expanding shock wave
generated by the explosion. The red and green regions show
material from the destroyed star that has been heated to
millions of degrees by the explosion. + Read more/access larger
images Image credit: NASA/CXC/UMass Amherst/M.D.Stage et al.