The star could be building up to another eruption soon.Ĭassiopeia has produced two supernovae in recent centuries. The most recent expelled 20 times more material than is contained in all of the planets and moons of our solar system combined. Three times in the last six decades, it has blasted shells of gas into space. Actually, Rho Cas is in the process of doing just that. It may be just about as bright as a star can get without blowing itself apart. Rho Cas, which is to the right of Cassiopeia's W, is far bigger and more massive than the Sun and at least a half-million times brighter. It is about 10,000 light-years away, making it one of the most distant stars that is visible to the unaided eye. For a few days or weeks, it will outshine everything in the night sky except the Moon.Īnother of the constellation's stars, Rho Cassiopeia, is also destined to explode as a supernova. Eventually, the star will no longer be able to produce energy in its core, causing the core to collapse and its outer layers to explode as a supernova. That energy works its way to the surface and shines into space as visible light, ultraviolet, and other forms of electromagnetic energy. Such a monster produces a lot of energy through the nuclear reactions in its core. That's because Gamma Cas is about 15 times as massive as the Sun and hundreds of times wider. If you add up all of its energy - not just the light that is visible to the eye - it shines about 40,000 times brighter than the Sun. Gamma Cassiopeia is the star at the middle of the W. Cassiopeia looks like a flattened "W" against the frothy background of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. The best time to see her is in late fall, when she stands high in the northeastern sky during the evening hours.
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