Chandra X-Ray Observatory Captures Breathtaking New Images
A new eye-catching compilation of images is being released that features data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory along with a host of other telescopes. including NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble Space Telescope.
As NASA’s flagship X-ray telescope, Chandra observes a wide range of astrophysical phenomena that are manifest in highly energetic radiation. There are nine objects in this new space-based light pageant, ranging from nearby pockets of star formation to distant galaxies with giant black holes. Moving left to right, they are:
Top row:
N79 is a giant region of star formation in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite neighbor galaxy to the Milky Way. Chandra sees the hot gas created by young stars, which helps astronomers better understand how stars like our Sun formed billions of years ago.
[X-rays from Chandra (purple) and infrared data from Webb (blue, grey and gold)]
NGC 2146 is a spiral galaxy with one of its dusty arms obscuring the view of its center from Earth.. X-rays from Chandra reveal double star systems and hot gas being expelled from the galaxy by supernova explosions and strong winds from giant stars.
[X-rays from Chandra (pink and purple), optical data from Hubble and the Las Cumbres Observatory in Chile and infrared data from NSF’s Kitt Peak (red, green and blue)]
IC 348 is a star-forming region in our Milky Way galaxy. The wispy structures that dominate the image are interstellar material that reflects light from the cluster’s stars. The point-like sources in Chandra’s X-ray data are young stars forming in the cluster..
[X-rays from Chandra (red, green and blue) and Webb infrared data (pink, orange and purple)]
Middle row:
M83, a spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way, is oriented face-on toward Earth, providing an unobstructed view of its entire structure that is often not possible with galaxies viewed atdifferent angles. Chandra has detected the explosions of stars, or supernovas, and their aftermath across M83.
[X-rays from Chandra (red, green and blue) with ground-based optical data (pink, gold and gray)].
M82 is a so-called starburst galaxy where stars are forming at rates tens to hundreds of times higher than normal galaxies. Chandra sees supernovas that produce expanding bubbles of multimillion-degree gas that extend for millions of light-years away from the galaxy's disk.
[X-rays from Chandra (purple) with Hubble optical data (red, green, and blue)]
NGC 1068 is a relatively nearby spiral galaxy containing a black hole at its center that is twice as massive as the one in the Milky Ways. Chandra shows a million-mile-per-hour wind is being driven from NGC 1068’s black hole which lights (?) up the center of the galaxy in X-rays.
[X-rays from Chandra (blue), radio data from NSF’s VLA radio data (pink), and optical data from Hubble and Webb (yellow, grey and gold)]
Bottom row:
NGC 346 is a young cluster home to thousands of newborn stars. The cluster’s most massive stars createpowerful winds and produce intense radiation. X-rays from Chandra reveal output from massive stars in the cluster and diffuse emission from a supernova remnant, the glowing debris of an exploded star.
[X-rays from Chandra (purple) with optical and ultraviolet from Hubble blue, brown and gold)]
IC 1623 is a system where two galaxies are erging. As the galaxies collide, they trigger new bursts of star formation that glow intensely in certain kinds of light which is detected by Chandara and other telescopesThe merging galaxies may also be in the process of forming a supermassive black hole.
[X-rays from Chandra (magenta) with Webb infrared data (red, gold and gray)]
Westerlund 1 is the biggest and closest “super” star cluster to Earth. Data from Chandra and other telescopes is helping astronomers delve deeper into this galactic factory where stars are being produced at extraordinarily high rates. Observations from Chandra have uncovered thousands of individual stars pumping out X-ray emission into the cluster.
[X-rays from Chandra (pink, blue, purple and orange) with Webb infrared data (yellow, gold and blue) and Hubble optical data (cyan, grey and light yellow)]
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Chandra X-ray Center, part of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
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Image Credits
NGC 2146: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI and NOIRLab/NSF/AURA; Infrared: NSF/NOAO/KPNO; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare
IC 348: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Major
M83: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/ESA/AURA/STScI, Hubble Heritage Team, W. Blair (STScI/Johns Hopkins University) and R. O'Connell (University of Virginia); Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare
M82: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical/IR: NASA/ESA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Major
NGC 1068: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical/IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI (HST and JWST); Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Schmidt and N. Wolk
NGC 346: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical/IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI (HST and JWST); Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Schmidt and N. Wolk
IC 1623: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and J. Major
Westerlund 1: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI; IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare