1999 - Eta Carinae 2000 - E0102-72.3 2001 - Cat’s Eye Nebula 2002 - Crab Nebula

2003 - Crescent Nebula 2004 - Cassiopeia a 2005 - Tycho’s SNR 2006 - Mz 3 Chandra Favorites * 1999 - 2006 HTTP://chandra.harvard.edu

1999 - Eta Carinae 2000 - E0102-72.3 2001 - Cat’s Eye Nebula 2002 - Crab Nebula The Chandra X-ray image shows the The Chandra X-ray image (blue) shows Chandra X-ray Observatory data (purple) Chandra data provide a dramatic look complex nature of the region around gas that has been heated to millions of shows a bright central star surrounded by at the activity generated by the pulsar Eta Carinae, a massive supergiant star degrees Celsius by a shock wave moving a cloud of multimillion-degree gas in the (white dot near the center of the images) that is 7,500 light years from Earth. into matter ejected by the supernova. planetary nebula known as the Cat’s Eye. in the Crab Nebula. The inner X-ray ring The outer horseshoe shaped ring has a This gas is rich in oxygen and neon. The central star is expected to collapse is thought to be a shock wave that marks temperature of about 3 million degrees The radio image (red) made with the into a white dwarf in a few million years. the boundary between the surrounding Celsius. It is about two light years in Australia Telescope Compact Array, This composite image with Hubble Space nebula and the flow of matter and diameter and was probably caused by traces the outward motion of a shock Telescope data (red and green) shows antimatter particles from the pulsar. an outburst that occurred more than a wave due to the motion of extremely where the hot, X-ray emitting gas appears Energetic shocked particles move thousand years ago. The blue cloud in high-energy electrons. The optical image in relation to the cooler material seen in outward to brighten the outer ring and the inner core is three light months in (green) made with the Hubble Space optical wavelengths. A planetary nebula produce an extended X-ray glow. The diameter and is much hotter; the white Telescope, shows dense clumps of (so called because it looks like a planet jets perpendicular to the ring are due to area inside the blue cloud is the hottest oxygen gas that have “cooled” to about when viewed with a small telescope) is matter and antimatter particles spewing and may contain the superstar which is 30,000 degree Celsius. formed when a dying red giant star puffs out from the poles of the pulsar. vigorously blowing matter off its surface. off its outer layer, leaving behind a hot central core.

2003 - Crescent Nebula 2004 - Cassiopeia a 2005 - Tycho’s SNR 2006 - Mz 3 About 400,000 years ago, a massive star This spectacular image of the supernova X-ray data shows a bubble of hot This composite image (X-ray/blue, in the Crescent Nebula ejected its outer remnant Cassiopeia A is the most supernova debris (green, red) inside a optical/green, and infrared/red) shows a layers at about 20,000 miles per hour and detailed image ever made of the remains more rapidly moving shell of extremely scene of the unfolding drama of the last expanded into a red giant. Two hundred of an exploded star. The one million high-energy electrons (blue). These stages of the evolution of sun-like stars. thousand years later, intense radiation second image shows a bright outer features were created as the supersonic Planetary nebulas are produced in the from the star’s exposed hot, inner layer ring (green) ten light years in diameter expansion of the debris into interstellar late stages of moderate-mass stars’ life. began pushing gas away at over of 3 that marks the location of a shock wave gas produced two shock waves - one that Over a period of a few hundred thousand million miles per hour! The collision of generated by the supernova explosion. moves outward and accelerates particles years, much of a star’s mass is expelled the fast stellar wind with the slower red A large jet-like structure that protrudes to high energies, and another that moves at a relatively slow speed. This mass loss giant wind compressed gas into a dense beyond the shock wave can be seen in backward and heats the stellar debris. creates a more or less spherical cloud shell (red), and produced two shock the upper left. In this image, the colors The relative expansion speeds of the hot around the star and eventually uncovers waves: an outward-moving shock that represent different ranges of X-rays with debris and the high energy shell indicate the star’s blazing hot core. Later, shock is visible at optical wavelengths (green), red, green, and blue representing, low, that a large fraction of the energy of the waves generated by the collision of and an inward-moving shock wave that medium, and higher X-ray energies. outward-moving shock wave is going high-speed gas from the hot core with created a bubble of 2-million-degree into the acceleration of atomic nuclei to the previously ejected cloud create the X-ray emitting gas (blue). extremely high energies. multimillion degree bubbles.