Chandra Release - March 24, 2004

Visual Description: N49B

This Chandra X-ray Observatory image of supernova remnant N49B features two images side by side. Both images have the same large circular shapes in the center.  Overall the first image is dominated by yellow, green and purple colors, while the second image is predominantly magenta and aqua.  The Chandra image of N49B on the left shows a cloud of multimillion degree gas that has been expanding for about 10,000 years. A specially processed version of this image (on the right) reveals unexpectedly large concentrations of the element magnesium (colored blue-green). Magnesium, created deep inside the star and ejected in the supernova explosion, is usually associated with correspondingly high concentrations of oxygen. However, the Chandra data indicate that the amount of oxygen in N49B is not exceptional. This poses a puzzle as to how the excess magnesium was created, or, alternatively, how the excess oxygen has escaped detection.