Chandra Shows Off its "Scrollytelling"

The Chandra team has been working behind the scenes with the Smithsonian Institution's Digitization 3D Program, to create a new scrolling interactive for Cassiopeia A.

The term "scrollytelling" is real, even if you might not find it in every dictionary. (Though if you look in online ones – especially any that include online terminology – you will.) You may have experienced scrollytelling yourself if you’ve read or explored longer pieces of content on certain platforms or news outlets.

The idea is simple: as you scroll down the page, new information in the form of text, images, and videos will appear. It’s an effective way to convey layers of information, and we’re excited to share this new resource that will let you explore Cassiopeia A in a new way! Cas A, as it’s known, is arguably Chandra's most famous data of a supernova remnant, the leftover material from a star that exploded 340 years ago. Chandra has observed Cas A many times over its 25-year mission, and we have discovered lots about this exploded star -- including how it looks in three dimensions.

Here's the scroll: https://3d.si.edu/supernova-cassiopeia-a

As you scroll through, take a moment to watch some of the embedded videos to learn more, or save them for later if you want a quick overview. In the background, our 3D model turns in space to show off key features of the remnant. As it zooms in on certain areas of the model, snippets of information about the features scroll by with schematic representations of the object. The information presented will help the user to understand the significance of some of Chandra's discoveries.

As a companion piece to the Scrolling story, visit SI's Voyager page, where you can watch or listen to a visually-described tour of the 3D model of Cas A, or you can tumble around the model in 3D space at your own pace:
https://3d.si.edu/object/3d/cassiopeia-supernova-remnant:732d123d-7a35-411b-a4e1-5e355adcacf8

If Cas A has gotten you hooked on exploring space through X-rays, Chandra has collaborated with SI's 3D team on several objects now in a permanent collection: https://3d.si.edu/collections/Chandra

Megan Watzke, CXC