This was
your sky.

Recycling Cassiopeia A

Massive stars in the Milky Way Galaxy live spectacular lives for billions of years. They collapse from cosmic clouds, ignite nuclear furnaces, and create heavy elements in their cores. After a few million years, the enriched material is blasted back into interstellar space, restarting star formation. The expanding debris cloud known as Cassiopeia A is an example of this final phase of the stellar life cycle.