Credit
X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ of Michigan/A.E.Jaskot,
Optical: NOAO/CTIO/MCELS
This composite image shows the superbubble DEM L50 (a.k.a. N186) located in the Large Magellanic Cloud about 160,000 light years from Earth. Superbubbles are found in regions where massive stars have formed in the last few million years. The massive stars produce intense radiation, expel matter at high speeds, and race through their evolution to explode as supernovas . The winds and supernova shock waves carve out huge cavities called superbubbles in the surrounding gas.
X-rays
from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory are shown in pink and optical
data from the Magellanic Cloud Emission Line Survey (MCELS) are colored
in red, green and blue. The MCELS data were obtained with the University
of Michigan's 0.9-meter Curtis Schmidt telescope at Cerro Tololo
Inter-American Observatory (CTIO). The shape of DEM L50 is approximately
an ellipse, with a supernova remnant named SNR N186 D located on its northern edge.
Like another superbubble in the LMC, N44 (see last year's press release), DEM L50 gives off about 20 times more X-rays than expected from standard models for the evolution of superbubbles. A Chandra study
published in 2011 showed that there are two extra sources of the bright
X-ray emission: supernova shock waves striking the walls of the
cavities, and hot material evaporating from the cavity walls.
The Chandra study of DEM L50 was led by Anne Jaskot from the
University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The co-authors were Dave Strickland
from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, Sally Oey from
University of Michigan, You-Hua Chu from University of Illinois and
Guillermo Garcia-Segura from Instituto de Astronomia-UNAM in Ensenada,
Mexico.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the
Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra's science and
flight operations from Cambridge, Mass.
Fast Facts for DEM L50:
- Scale: Image is 20.5 arcmin across (950 light years)
- Category: Normal Stars & Star Clusters
- Coordinates (J2000): RA 04h 59m 49.00s | Dec -70º 10' 28.00"
- Constellation: Mensa
- Observation Date: Jan 1, 2003
- Observation Time: 10 hours 29 min
- Obs. ID: 3355
- Instrument: ACIS
- References: Jaskot, A.E. et al 2011, ApJ, 729, 28; arXiv:1101.0280
- Color Code: X-ray (Magenta); Optical (Red, Green, Blue)
