NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Collection

XMM-Newton First Light: X-Rays From The LMC

Recently [ http://sci.esa.int/…] the European Space Agency released this and other spectacular "first light" pictures [ http://heasarc.gsfc…] from its new orbiting x-ray observatory [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…], christened XMM-Newton [ http://sci.esa.int/…]. A churning region of star birth and death in our small neighboring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] (LMC), this field was one of several chosen to test out XMM-Newton's x-ray imaging [ http://imagine.gsfc…xtelescopes_physics. html ] capabilities. The picture is a false-colour one in which low energy x-rays are translated to red, medium energy to green, and high energy to blue. Image colours [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] therefore represent the relative million degree temperatures of the x-ray emitting regions, red being the coolest and blue the hottest. Remains of the star that exploded as Supernova 1987a [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] appear here as the white x-ray source at the lower right, while another supernova remnant [ http://imagine.gsfc…supernova_cover.html ], cataloged as N157D is the brightest source at the upper left. The bluish arc (near center) also appears to be a supernova remnant [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] whose expanding debris cloud [ http://chandra.harv…] is interacting with the LMC's local interstellar gas.

XMM Project [ http://sci.esa.int/…], ESA [ http://sci.esa.int/]

x-ray

lmc

xmm-newton

Large Magellanic Cloud

Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)

Washington, D.C.

XMM-Newton

http://antwrp.gsfc.…

SPD-APOD-ap000211