Here’s a short little post about the star forming nebula NGC 281, captured by NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory. This photograph is actually a composite of several wavelengths, imaged by ground and space-based observatories.
The optical data (red, orange and yellow) shows the clouds of gas and dust, and the dark lanes of obscuring dust where stars may be forming. The Chandra X-Ray data is in purple, and reveals more than 300 individual X-ray sources – most of them are associated with the central star forming region.
There’s another group of X-ray sources on the other side of the molecular cloud. Based on the elements in the region, astronomers think that a supernova went off in the region recently.
But really, it’s a pretty picture.
Original Source: Chandra News Release
NASA has given the go-ahead for SpaceX to work out a plan to adapt its…
The JWST is astronomers' best tool for probing exoplanet atmospheres. Its capable instruments can dissect…
First light for the Vera Rubin Observatory (VRO) is quickly approaching and the telescope is…
A beautiful nebula in the southern hemisphere with a binary star at it's center seems…
The history of astronomy and observatories is full of stories about astronomers going higher and…
The JWST keeps one-upping itself. In the telescope's latest act of outdoing itself, it examined…