Post by glactus on Apr 25, 2009 3:21:15 GMT
N49 - A supernova remnant in the Large Magellanic clouds
This is a composite image of N49, the brightest supernova remnant in optical light in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The Chandra X-ray image (blue) shows million-degree gas in the center. Much cooler gas at the outer parts of the remnant is seen in the infrared image from Spitzer (red). While astronomers expected that dust particles were generating most of the infrared emission, the study of this object indicates that much of the infrared is instead generated in heated gas.
The Large Magellanic Cloud is a nearby galaxy, once thought to be a satellite of our own. At a distance of slightly less than 160,000 light-years, this beautiful cosmic object is the third closest galaxy to the Milky Way and has a mass equivalent to approximately 10 billion times the mass of our Sun, making it roughly 1/10 as massive as the Milky Way.
The LMC is the fourth largest galaxy in the Local Group, the first, second and third largest places being taken by Andromeda Galaxy (M31), our own Milky Way Galaxy, and the Triangulum Galaxy (M33).
While the LMC is often considered an irregular type galaxy, it contains a very prominent bar in its center, suggesting that it may have previously been a barred spiral galaxy. Its irregular appearance is possibly the result of tidal interactions with both the Milky Way, and the Small Magellanic Cloud.
It is visible as a faint 'cloud' in the night sky of the southern hemisphere, straddling the border between the constellations of Dorado and Mensa. Variable magnitude is 0.9
Credits:
Image: This is a NASA /Hubble image