Oxygen-Rich Supernova Remnent N132D

Not much to say, just a pretty picture of supernova remnant N132D, captured by NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory. I don’t know about you, but this actually reminds me of a mysterious creature that might pass by a deep sea submersible. But nope, it’s in space, located in the Large Magellanic Cloud. In fact, it’s the brightest supernova remnant in the nearby dwarf galaxy.

As usual, an image like this is completely false colour, based on different wavelengths of X-ray radiation. The low energy X-rays are in red, the intermediate in green and the high-energy rays are in blue.

N132D may be the brightest supernova remnant, but it’s actually part of a rare class of oxygen-rich explosions. Astronomers are still trying to understand what conditions existed in the star itself to generate an explosion that spread so much heavy elements, like oxygen, into the surrounding space.

Original Source: Chandra News Release