Chandra Observatory

ALT This is a composite image of a spiral galaxy with a giant, unstable star at its outer edge. The spiral galaxy, NGC 4559, is shown at a sharp angle in the image, its flat pink and milky blue face tilts toward our upper left. Sitting near the outer edge of the dense spiral, near the center of the frame, is a small group of pink and blue dots. This group is outlined with an illustrated white square. The smallest pink dot in the square is AT 2016blu, a massive star some 33 times the size of our Sun. Other pink and blue specks within the white square and enlargement are unresolved stars or star clusters, too distant to be related to the movement of material between AT 2016blu and its hidden but influential neighbor.

ALT This is a composite image of a small portion of the Carina Nebula reveals a striking golden-orange cloud of gas and dust that loosely resembles a ghostly figure. Its glowing hooded head and a sweeping cape-like tail stretch through a star-filled background of rich blues, reds, and greens. Brilliant blue-white stars sparkle in the scene, while bright pink dots of X-ray light reveal young stars scattered across this eerie stellar nursery.

ALT This X-ray image of the supernova remnant G306.3-0.9 features a very small, bright purple object in the center of a dark and starry sky. The purple nebula has some bits of red and blue peeking through. It has a cartoon-like fish shape, poised as if swimming down into the water. It stands out from the surrounding stars due to its colors, brightness and contrast against the darker background. The image is roughly 20 arcminutes across, which corresponds to 150 light-years at the remnant's estimated distance of about 26,000 light-years.

ALT A composite image of a remarkable radio wave formation that strongly resembles a treble clef musical symbol, hovering in the midst of two colliding galaxy clusters. Here, galaxies in the galaxy clusters, plus foreground and background stars and galaxies, blanket the image with specks of light set against the blackness of space. At the center of the frame is a large, oval, blue-purple cloud with ragged edges. In the middle of the purple field, tilting slightly to our left, is what appears to be a giant treble clef, loosely drawn with a neon pink marker. Like the musical notation for which it's named, the formation has a strong vertical stroke with a continuous, fluid line swooping back and forth as it moves from top to bottom.

ALT A unlabeled image of the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. Overall, it looks like an impressionist oil painting with patches of diffused color. At the heart of the image is a light purple cloud and a spiraling, bright yellow tangle. The purple cloud represents X-rays from the center of the supernova remnant. Inside the bright yellow tangle is Sagittarius A*. Surrounding the remnants of the exploded star and its black hole neighbor, is a neon red gas cloud with trails drifting toward our upper right. Here, red represents radio data from the NSF's Very Large Array. A faint, dark blue cloud, barely discernible against the blackness of space, begins at our upper left and exits the bottom of the frame. This is submillimeter-wavelength data from the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. Mottled, faint patches of forest green stretch across the image from our lower left to our upper right. These are lower-energy X-rays detected by Chandra, possibly linked to past outbursts from Sagittarius A*.

ALT A composite image of the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. Overall, it looks like an impressionist oil painting with patches of diffused color. At the heart of the image is a light purple cloud and a spiraling, bright yellow tangle. The purple cloud represents X-rays from the center of the supernova remnant. Inside the bright yellow tangle is Sagittarius A*. Surrounding the remnants of the exploded star and its black hole neighbor, is a neon red gas cloud with trails drifting toward our upper right. Here, red represents radio data from the NSF's Very Large Array. A faint, dark blue cloud, barely discernible against the blackness of space, begins at our upper left and exits the bottom of the frame. This is submillimeter-wavelength data from the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. Mottled, faint patches of forest green stretch across the image from our lower left to our upper right. These are lower-energy X-rays detected by Chandra, possibly linked to past outbursts from Sagittarius A*.

ALT A composite image of a spiral galaxy, M101; one of six identified galaxies housing a new class of mysterious objects that give off unusually low-energy X-rays. In this image, M101 faces us directly. It has multiple arms in shades of purple, spiraling clockwise around a golden yellow core. Scattered along and between the arms are scores of tiny specks in white and purple. Most of those specks are pairs of stars, but seven of them are a mystery. To casual observers, the unusual objects are visually indistinguishable from the other specks of light in the galaxy. The curious objects give off X-rays of such low energy, they in fact produce large amounts of ultraviolet radiation, as UV radiation borders X-rays on the electromagnetic spectrum. Searching images of galaxies with low-energy X-rays in the Chandra Observatory archive, scientists have found a total of 84 such objects spread across M101 and five other galaxies. They have dubbed these mysterious objects "hypersoft X-ray sources."

ALT NGC 1569, a compact dwarf irregular galaxy undergoing a violent, compact burst of star formation. Chandra and XMM-Newton observations (blue and purple) reveal massive bubbles of million-degree gas inflated by stellar winds, set against a backdrop of optical light (magenta, orange and white) imaged by Adam Block. Dwarf starburst galaxies can serve as local laboratories for studying the conditions of the early universe, where small, primitive galaxies formed stars at frantic rates. Overall, NGC 1569 resembles a tangle of glowing red yarn surrounding a white sparkler.

ALT This is a multiwavelength image of galaxy NGC 1672. At its center are two thick, spiraling, dark purple arms that bridge a brilliant white and neon pink core. Those bridging arms create a bar, which channels gas to the core, making NGC 1672 a barred spiral galaxy, like our own Milky Way. Longer, wispier arms also spiral out from the core, dotted with gleaming white and pink stars.

ALT Three images of the Tarantula Nebula, each representing a different wavelength of light, presented in a different color. When layered atop one another, like sheets of colored cellophane, they combine to produce a vibrant and informative singular image. The base layer features a blanket of wispy blue clouds against a black backdrop. These clouds represent hot gas observed by Chandra. The second layer cuts diagonally across the cloudy blue square, tilted from our upper left down toward our lower right. This red layer represents infrared data collected by Webb. The third layer is a diamond-shaped image, with its points touching the edges of the big blue base layer. This green layer represents data captured by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. In the center of the combined image, the three translucent layers overlap, resulting in an image of intermingled blue, red, and green clouds that blend to include lively shades of fiery orange, golden yellow, and deep purple.

ALT Three images of the Tarantula Nebula, each representing a different wavelength of light, presented in a different color. When layered atop one another, like sheets of colored cellophane, they combine to produce a vibrant and informative singular image. The base layer features a blanket of wispy blue clouds against a black backdrop. These clouds represent hot gas observed by Chandra. The second layer cuts diagonally across the cloudy blue square, tilted from our upper left down toward our lower right. This red layer represents infrared data collected by Webb. The third layer is a diamond-shaped image, with its points touching the edges of the big blue base layer. This green layer represents data captured by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. In the center of the combined image, the three translucent layers overlap, resulting in an image of intermingled blue, red, and green clouds that blend to include lively shades of fiery orange, golden yellow, and deep purple.

ALT Near the center of this composite image is a small, irregular, pale yellow oval with a red outer ring, in the heart of a bright, hazy red cloud. This is a galaxy nicknamed the “red potato” by astronomers. To our upper right of the red potato and its hazy red cloud of gas, is a neighboring galaxy in a pool of blue haze. This galaxy is also pale yellow in color, but has a less defined, less tuber-like shape than its counterpart. The blue pool represents X-rays from a growing supermassive black hole in the heart of the galaxy. The pool has a stubby tail, or X-ray jet, pointed toward the red cloud, and faint pockets of red and blue overlap within the image.

ALT This image features four images, showing four wonders of the universe, rendered in red, white, and blue and presented in a grid layout. The images contain X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, optical and infrared data from the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope, as well as ground-based telescopes. The top left image is Cassiopeia A. The top right image is NGC 3603. The bottom left image is ZwCl 0024+1652. The bottom right image is NGC 4736, also known as M94.

ALT This composite image of colorful, overlapping clouds, suggests to astronomers that a supernova remnant may be buried in gas near the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Set against a backdrop packed with distant stars and other specks of light are two distinct, overlapping clouds. The larger, visually dominant cloud, is red and multifaceted. It has an irregular shape, and features patches of different textures, including pockets that resemble wispy smoke, tangles of faint red veins, and clear streaking lines. This large cloud of expanding gas represents radio data from the MeerKAT telescope in South Africa. Overlapping with that red cloud is a cloudy blue blob representing X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton. Astronomers suggest that this blue blob of X-ray emissions is the remains of a massive star destroyed by a supernova.

ALT This image centers on a bright, pinpoint white glow marking Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way, surrounded by a turbulent, cloud-like environment. Radiating outward from the center is a luminous swirl of blue X-ray emission from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, forming a soft, irregular halo that is brightest near the core and fades into darker shades toward the edges. Interwoven with this blue glow are thick, patchy structures in orange, tracing colder gas mapped by radio observations from ALMA. These orange regions form a partial ring and clumpy arcs around the center, but notably break open to reveal a wide, cone-shaped cavity where little to no orange emission appears. This hollowed-out region is instead filled with the blue X-ray glow, emphasizing the contrast between hot and cold material. The scene feels dynamic and layered, with the interplay of blue and orange just a few light-years from the galaxy’s core.

ALT This composite image features two star clusters, viewed through a churning tunnel of golden cloud. The cloud creates a border around the entire image, like a thick swirling smoke ring. Beyond it, in the open center, is a vast field of neon purple specks. These specks are young stars observed by Chandra. Within the central field, two cluster groupings are suggested by separate swirls of faint, steel blue mist. One sits near our upper left. The other is near the bottom right, partially obscured by the golden yellow ring cloud.