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N132D: A supernova remnant located in
the Large Magellanic Cloud about 160,000 light years from
Earth. Caption: Chandra's "true color" image of N132D shows a beautiful, complex remnant of the explosion of a massive star. The colors represent different ranges of X-rays, with red, green, and blue representing, low, medium, and higher X-ray energies. The horseshoe shape of the remnant is thought to be due to shock waves from the collision of the supernova ejecta with cool giant gas clouds. As the shock waves move through the gas they heat it to millions of degrees, producing the glowing X-ray shell. Scale: Image is 100 arcsec on a side. Chandra X-ray Observatory ACIS Image
CXC operated for
NASA by the Smithsonian Astrophysical
Observatory
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