Chandra Release - January 4, 2007

Visual Description: DEM L238 and DEM L249

 This image features supernova remnants DEM L238 and DEM L249, both of which appear as bright blue and soft beige objects in a sky littered with bright and dim stars. The supernova remnants look like a pair of small circular sapphire and burnished gold earrings spread out in space.  DEM L238 and DEM L249 are supernova remnants in the Large Magellanic Cloud. X-ray data suggest that the stars responsible for these debris fields were unusually young when they were destroyed by thermonuclear explosions.  The large field-of-view composite image of DEM L238 (on the right) and DEM L249 (on the left) has Chandra X-ray Observatory data in blue with optical data in beige and white. An inset at lower right reveals how DEM L238 appears in a 3-color X-ray image (low energy X-rays are shown in red, medium energies in green and high energies in blue.), looking like a mottled Grinch face in a red hat. The central region of DEM L238 is green which indicates that it is rich in iron. This overabundance of iron identifies this object as a so-called Type Ia supernova, one possible explosive death of a star.