1. Tour of G299.2-2.9
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G299.2-2.9 is an intriguing supernova remnant found about 16,000 light years away in the Milky Way galaxy. Here we see the remnant in X-rays from Chandra overlaid on infrared data from the Two-Micron All-Sky Survey. Astronomers have gathered evidence that shows this remnant is the aftermath of what is called a Type Ia supernova. Type Ias happen when a white dwarf grows too massive and violently explodes. Astronomers want to understand the exact details of how Type Ias explode because they use them to measure the accelerated expansion of the universe and study dark energy. Because it is older than most Type Ias found so far, G299.2-2.9 provides astronomers with an excellent opportunity to study how these important objects evolve over time.
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(NASA/CXC/A. Hobart)

Related Chandra Images:

• Photo Album: G299.2-2.9

2. Tour of the Crab
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The Crab Nebula is one of the brightest sources of high-energy radiation in the sky. Little wonder - it's the expanding remains of an exploded star, a supernova seen in 1054. Scientists have used virtually every telescope at their disposal, including NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, to study the Crab. The supernova left behind a magnetized neutron star - a pulsar. It's about the size of Washington DC, but it spins 30 times a second. Each rotation sweeps a lighthouse-like beam past us, creating a pulse of electromagnetic energy detectable across the spectrum.

Here's what the sky looks like in high-energy gamma rays. The pulsar in the Crab Nebula is among the brightest sources. Recently, NASA's Fermi Gamma Ray Observatory and Italy's AGILE Satellite detected strong gamma-ray flares from the Crab, including a series of "superflares" in April 2011. To help pinpoint the location of these flares, astronomers enlisted Chandra.

With its keen X-ray eyes, Chandra saw lots of activity, but none of it seems correlated with the superflare. This hints that whatever is causing the flares is happening with about a third of a light year from the pulsar. And rapid changes in the rise and fall of gamma rays imply that the emission region is very small, comparable in size to our Solar System.

The Chandra observations will likely help scientists to home in on an explanation of the gamma-ray flares one day. The Chandra data provide strong constraints on the behavior, at relatively low energies, of the particles that have been accelerated to produce the gamma-ray flares. Even after a thousand years, the heart of this shattered star still offers scientists glimpses of staggering energies and cutting edge science.
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(NASA/CXC/MSFC/M.Weisskopf et al & A.Hobart)

Related Chandra Images:

• Photo Album: Crab Nebula

3. Chandra Motion Sequence of Crab Nebula
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A new movie from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows a sequence of Chandra images of the Crab Nebula, taken over an interval of seven months. Dramatic variations are seen, including the expansion of a ring of X-ray emission around the pulsar (white dot near center) and changes in the knots within this ring. Chandra began observing the Crab on monthly intervals beginning six days after the discovery of the gamma-ray flare in September 2010. This established a baseline of seven images of the nebula before the superflare was seen just last month. When scientists saw that more flaring activity was beginning in April 2011, a pre-planned set of five Chandra observations was initiated. Two of these observations were made when strong gamma-ray flares occurred, but no clear evidence was seen for correlated flares in the Chandra images. The movie shows the April observations in "slow motion" to focus on the time when the gamma-ray superflares occurred. The movie shows three loops through the sequence of images, along with a timeline near the bottom.
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View Stills
(NASA/CXC/MSFC/M.Weisskopf et al & A.Hobart)

Related Chandra Images:

• Photo Album: Crab Nebula

4. Tour of Tycho's Supernova Remnant
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New research using Chandra data of the Tycho supernova remnant provides astronomers with clues to what triggered the original supernova explosion. Tycho was formed by a so-called Type Ia supernova. Scientists use this category of supernovas to measure large distances across the Universe because it is believed they are consistently bright when they explode. But what causes the explosion? This is still a debate. This new Chandra result, however, suggests that Tycho went off when a white dwarf pulled too much material from a companion star and exploded. This evidence comes from a small arc of X-ray emission that was found in the Chandra image. This arc is, in fact, due to a shock wave created when the white dwarf exploded and blew material off the surface of the nearby star. Understanding exactly how and why Type Ia supernovas explode is useful because they are an important type of object for investigating dark energy in the Universe.
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(NASA/CXC/Chinese Academy of Sciences/F. Lu et al)

Related Chandra Images:

• Photo Album: Tycho's Supernova Remnant

5. A Tour of Tycho
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Over four hundred years ago, the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe studied the explosion of a star that later became known as Tycho's supernova. A look at Tycho in X-rays by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows that the supernova remnant contains an expanding bubble of superheated debris, which sits within an even more rapidly moving shell of extremely high-energy electrons. A very long Chandra observation of Tycho totaling about a million seconds of time, has uncovered new and unexpected structures in this aftermath of the star's explosion. A series of stripes in the remnant provides novel evidence for particles that have been accelerated to extremely high energies. This is an important clue to better understanding the object that Tycho Brahe first saw back in 1572.
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(X-ray: NASA/CXC/Rutgers/K.Eriksen et al.; Optical: DSS)

Related Chandra Images:

• Photo Album: Tycho's Supernova Remnant

6. Multiwavelength Views of Tycho's Supernova Remnant
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A long Chandra observation of Tycho has revealed a pattern of X-ray "stripes" never seen before in a supernova remnant. The stripes are seen in the high-energy X-rays (blue) that also show the blast wave, a shell of extremely energetic electrons. Low-energy X-rays (red) show expanding debris from the supernova explosion. The stripes, seen to the lower right of this composite image that includes optical data from the Digitized Sky Survey, may provide the first direct evidence that a cosmic event can accelerate particles to energies a hundred times higher than achieved by the most powerful particle accelerator on Earth.
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(X-ray: NASA/CXC/Rutgers/K.Eriksen et al.; Optical: DSS)

Related Chandra Images:

• Photo Album: Tycho's Supernova Remnant

7. A Tour of SN 1979C
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The youngest known black hole in our cosmic neighborhood may have been found using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes. Evidence for this very young black hole was found in a supernova called 1979C, seen to explode about 30 years ago. Dr Dan Patnaude of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics led this study and discusses it with us.
[Runtime: 02:56]
(X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/D.Patnaude et al, Optical: ESO/VLT, Infrared: NASA/JPL/Caltech)

Related Chandra Images:

• Photo Album: SN 1979C

8. Animation of Black Hole Formation in SN 1979C
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This animation shows how a black hole may have formed in SN 1979C. The collapse of a massive star is shown, after it has exhausted its fuel. A flash of light from a shock breaking through the surface of the star is then shown, followed by a powerful supernova explosion. The view then zooms into the center of the explosion. Red, slow-moving material in a disk is shown falling onto the white neutron star that formed when the star collapsed. The rate of infall onto the neutron star increases until the star collapses into a black hole. Matter should continue to fall into the black hole and generate bright X-ray emission for many years.
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(NASA/CXC/A.Hobart)

Related Chandra Images:

• Photo Album: SN 1979C

9. Tour of G327.1-1.1
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G327.1-1.1 is the aftermath of a massive star that exploded as a supernova in the Milky Way galaxy. A highly magnetic, rapidly spinning neutron star called a pulsar was left behind after the explosion and is producing a wind of relativistic particles, seen in X-rays by Chandra and XMM-Newton as well as in radio data. This structure is called a pulsar wind nebula. No clear explanation is yet known for the unusual shape of this supernova remnant. One possibility is that we are seeing the effects of a shock wave bouncing backwards off of the shell of material swept up by the blast wave. The X-ray observations allow scientists to estimate the energy released during the supernova explosion and the age of the remnant, as well as the amount of material being swept up as the blast wave from the explosion expands.
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(X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/T.Temim et al. and ESA/XMM-Newton Radio: SIFA/MOST and CSIRO/ATNF/ATCA; Infrared: UMass/IPAC-Caltech/NASA/NSF/2MASS)

Related Chandra Images:

• Photo Album: G327.1-1.1

10. Tour of N49
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This beautiful image shows N49, which is the aftermath of a supernova explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Optical data from Hubble shows bright filaments where the shockwave generated by the supernova is interacting with the densest regions in nearby clouds of cool molecular gas. A new long observation from Chandra, equaling over 30 hours of observing time, reveals evidence for a bullet-shaped object that is being blown out of the debris field which is left over from an exploded star. This bullet, which is traveling some 5 million miles per hour, was ejected when the supernova went off and is rich in Silicon, Sulfur and Neon. The detection of this bullet shows that the explosion that destroyed the star was highly asymmetric , and gives clues to how some stars explode.
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(X-ray: (NASA/CXC/Penn State/S.Park et al.); Optical: NASA/STScI/UIUC/Y.H.Chu & R.Williams et al)

Related Chandra Images:

• Photo Album: N49