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A new discovery from a famous exploded star has provided the first evidence for a bizarre
state of matter in its core. The news comes from the studies of Cassiopeia A, the remains
of a massive star that was seen exploding in Earth's sky over 300 years ago. A sequence
of observations from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory over the past decade shows that
the ultradense core of the star left behind after the explosion known as a neutron star
has cooled by about 4%. This information, along with theoretical work, indicates that
the neutron star contains a mysterious state of matter known as a superfluid. This research
will help scientists better understand nuclear interactions in matter at the highest densities
known anywhere either here on Earth or out in space.