The first image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory's high-resolution camera reveals a lopsided supernova in a small galaxy not far away. The image shows the expanding remnants of a powerful stellar explosion that an observer on Earth could have witnessed 3,000 years ago.
The detonated star, which sizzles near 18-million degrees Fahrenheit, is part of a satellite galaxy to the Milky Way, called the Large Magellanic Cloud. The cloud orbits our own galaxy about 180,000 light years from Earth, and is about one-tenth the size of the Milky Way.
The supernova is notable because it is not symmetrical like most other supernova explosions. Rather, it has a mass of material blowing out of the upper left side. Other supernovas, such as Cassiopeia A, which Chandra imaged several weeks ago, have shockwaves of material that expand outward more-or-less evenly in all directions.
"The detail in this image is such that it's going to perplex people for a while, until they do a few more observations and a little more study of it," said Wallace Tucker, an astrophysicist at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, which operates Chandra.
One explanation for the uncharacteristic shape could be that the star exploded near a cloud, which forced much of the explosive energy to shoot away from the cloud, Tucker said.
The new image was produced August 30 during the first tests of Chandra's high-resolution camera.
With Chandra now in the test phase of its mission, scientists are busy testing and calibrating its instruments. After focusing on the Large Magellanic Cloud, mission scientists then zoomed in to test the camera's focus on the supernova, known as N132D.
"Even though these images are test images, they do have scientific value because they are showing detail that hasn't been seen before," Tucker said. "These pictures are about 25 to 50-times sharper than the previous X-ray telescope (images)."
The new picture shows an expanding shell with flares of bright X-ray emissions on one side and a visible hole on the other. (See accompanying image.) These features were blurred together in previous observations, Tucker said.
Because the supernova is so hot, an extraordinary amount of its total material can not be seen at visible wavelengths, but does shine brightly in the X-ray bands. Chandra's high resolution images of X-ray radiation will allow scientists to better understand the dynamics of the explosion, Tucker said.
"That's important because the elements that we are made of, such as carbon and oxygen, were made inside heavy stars and blown out into space," Tucker said. By studying these explosions, scientists can trace the origin of these elements and the mechanisms involved in their migration through space.
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