NASA telescopes start the year with two starbursts

This colorful and festive image shows several types of light containing the remains of not just one, but at least one of them Two stars exploded. this The rest of Supernova It's as common as 30 Dorados B (30 Dor B for short) and is part of an area larger than space Stars have been forming continuously for 8 to 10 million years. It is a complex landscape of dark gas clouds, young stars, high-energy shocks and extremely hot gases, located 160,000 light-years from Earth in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.

The new image of 30 Dor B was created by combining X-ray data from NASA's Chandra Observatory (in purple), optical data from the 4-meter Blanco telescope in Chile (in orange and cyan), and infrared data from NASA's Spitzer telescope. . Spacecraft (in red). Optical data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has been added in black and white to highlight the image's sharp features.

A team of astronomers led by Wei-Ann Chen of National Taiwan University in Taipei used more than 2 million seconds of Chandra's observation time of 30 Dor B and its surroundings to analyze the region. They found a faint envelope of X-rays extending about 130 light-years. Chandra's data also reveal that 30 Dor B contains a wind of particles that are blown away from the pulsar, creating what is known as a “pulsar wind nebula.”

Two possible supernovae at 30 Doradus b

When combined with data from Hubble and other telescopes, the researchers determined that no supernova explosion could explain what was being observed. Both the pulsar and the bright X-rays seen at the center of 30 Doradus B are likely the result of a supernova explosion after the collapse of a massive star about 5,000 years ago. However, the larger, fainter X-ray envelope is too large to be the result of the same supernova. Instead, the team believes so At least two supernova explosions This happened on 30 Dor B, where an X-ray shell was produced by another supernova more than 5,000 years ago. It is also possible that other things happened in the past as well.

this studioThis research, published in the Astronomical Journal, could help astronomers learn more about the lives of massive stars and the effects of their supernova explosions.