The dust mass in Cassiopeia A from a spatially resolved Herschel analysis

Understand

Theoretical models predict that core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) can be efficient dust producers (0.1-1.0 Msun), potentially accounting for most of the dust production in the early Universe.

• Observational evidence for this dust production efficiency is however currently limited to only a few CCSN remnants (e.g., SN1987A, Crab Nebula).
• In this paper, we revisit the dust mass produced in Cassiopeia A (Cas A), a ~330-year old O-rich Galactic supernova remnant (SNR) embedded in a dense interstellar foreground and background.
• We present the first spatially resolved analysis of Cas A based on Spitzer and Herschel infrared and submillimetre data at a common resolution of ~0.6 arcmin for this 5 arcmin diameter remnant following a careful removal of contaminating line emission and synchrotron radiation.