Chandra Release - September 28, 2011

Visual Description: NGC 281

This image shows an X-ray and infrared view of the star cluster NGC 281. The nebula appears as a colorful, swirling mass of gas and dust, with various shades of purple, pink, green, and grey.  The textures of the nebula resemble bits of jagged fog sprinkled liberally with bright glowing purple jewels clustered towards the upper center, with streaks of red light glowing softly behind them. This image includes X-ray data from Chandra (colored in purple) with infrared observations from Spitzer (red, green, and blue). The high-mass stars in NGC 281 influence many aspects of their galactic environment through powerful winds flowing from their surfaces and intense radiation that heats surrounding gas, "boiling it away" into interstellar space. This process results in the formation of large columns of gas and dust, as seen on the left side of the image. These structures likely contain newly forming stars. The eventual deaths of massive stars as supernovas will also seed the galaxy with material and energy.  NGC 281 is known informally as the "Pacman Nebula" because of its appearance in optical images. In optical images the "mouth" of the Pacman character appears dark because of obscuration by dust and gas, but in the infrared Spitzer image the dust in this region glows brightly.