What does the famously lopsided structure of Cassiopeia A reveal about its progenitor star's past?
Answer
It lived within a dense, uneven cloud or a binary system.
The observation of a lopsided, or asymmetrical, structure like that seen in Cassiopeia A is a direct physical signature linking the explosion back to its birth environment. Such asymmetry implies that the blast wave did not encounter a uniform medium. This non-uniform interaction suggests the progenitor massive star was either born within an uneven, dense cloud of gas and dust, or perhaps it was part of a binary system where one star ejected material onto the other prior to the supernova, causing differential interaction on opposite sides of the expanding shock front.
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What Is A Supernova Remnant (SNR)? - Physics Frontier - YouTube
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