X-Ray View of A Thousand-Year-Old Cosmic Tapestry (IMAGE)

Chandra X-ray Center

X-Ray View of A Thousand-Year-Old Cosmic Tapestry

Caption

A long Chandra observation reveals the SN 1006 supernova remnant in exquisite detail. By overlapping 10 different pointings of Chandra's field-of-view, astronomers have stitched together a cosmic tapestry of the debris field that was created when a white dwarf star exploded, sending its material hurtling into space as seen from Earth over a millennium ago. In this new Chandra image, low, medium, and higher-energy X-rays are colored red, green, and blue respectively. Since SN 1006 belongs to the class of supernovas used to measure the expansion of the Universe, the new Chandra data provide insight into these important objects.

Credit

NASA/CXC/Middlebury College/F.Winkler et al.

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