Saturday, July 25, 2009

Cosmic spokes and pummelled planets: 1,000 Years Old

The explosion of a massive star more than 1000 years ago created this colourful remnant, called E0102. It sits some 190,000 light years away in a nearby galaxy called the Small Magellanic Cloud.

The ejected remains seem to form a cylinder that we see end-on. The highest-energy X-rays are shown in blue, and the lowest in orange. A star not visible in this image is responsible for illuminating the green cloud of gas and dust on the lower right.

This image is a composite taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory, in celebration of the 10th anniversary of Chandra's deployment after launching into space aboard the space shuttle Columbia.

(Image: X-ray: NASA/CXC/MIT/ D. Dewey et al./SAO/J. DePasquale; Optical: NASA/STScI)

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