N132D and the Color of X-Rays
Supernova remnant N132D shows off complex structures in
this
sharp, color x-ray image.
Still, overall this
cosmic debris from a massive
star's explosive death has a strikingly simple horseshoe shape.
While N132D
lies 180,000 light-years distant in the
Large Magellanic Cloud,
the expanding remnant
appears here about 80 light-years across.
Light from the
supernova blast which created it would have reached
planet Earth about 3,000 years ago.
Observed by the orbiting
Chandra
Observatory, N132D still glows in
x-rays, its shocked gas heated
to millions of degrees
Celsius.
Since x-rays are invisible,
the Chandra x-ray image data are represented
in this picture by
assigning visible
colors to
x-rays with
different energies.
Low energy x-rays are shown as red, medium energy as green, and
high energy as blue colors.
These color choices make a pleasing picture and they also
show the x-rays in the same energy order as
visible light photons, which range
from low to high energies as red, green, and blue.