Chandra Release - December 14, 2010

Visual Description: SNR 0509-67.5

The image is an X-ray and optical image of a supernova remnant (SNR) called SNR 0509-67.5 in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC).  The dominant colors in the image are soft blue-green and bright pink-red.  The image shows a brightly glowing green object in the center, surrounded by many stars, like a bright sparkling sky. The structure with its red and green colors resembles a holiday ornament. This colorful creation was made by combining data from two of NASA's Great Observatories. Optical data of SNR 0509-67.5 and its accompanying star field, taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, are composited with X-ray energies from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The result shows soft green and blue hues of heated material from the X-ray data surrounded by the glowing pink optical shell which shows the ambient gas being shocked by the expanding blast wave from the supernova. Ripples in the shell's appearance coincide with brighter areas of the X-ray data.