Chandra Images

The Milky Way and other galaxies in the universe harbor many young star clusters and associations that each contain hundreds to thousands of hot, massive, young stars known as O and B stars. The star cluster C More

Italiano: ESO 137-001 (immagine composita -HST & Chandra)

A powerful collision of galaxy clusters has been captured by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory. This clash of clusters provides striking evidence for dark matter and insight into its More

A distant cosmic relative to the first source that astronomers detected in both gravitational waves and light may have been discovered, as reported in our latest press release. This object, called GRB 150101B, More

Combination image of quasar RX J1131 (center) taken via NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope.

In a collaborative effort between NASA's three Great Observatories, astronomers have solved a cosmic mystery by identifying some of the oldest and most distant black holes. The two rows of this image show two More

Composite image showing the galaxy cluster 1E 0657-56, better known as bullet cluster. The image in background showing the visible spectrum of light stems from Magellan and Hubble Space Telescope images. The p More

This new false-colored image from NASA's Hubble, Chandra and Spitzer space telescopes shows a giant jet of particles that has been shot out from the vicinity of a type of supermassive black hole called a quasa More

This false-color composite image shows the Cartwheel galaxy as seen by the Galaxy Evolution Explorer's Far Ultraviolet detector (blue); the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field and Planetary Camera-2 in B-band More

In celebration of the International Year of Astronomy 2009, NASA's Great Observatories -- the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory -- have produced a matched t More

Six Cluster Collisions, with Dark-Matter Maps (Hubble and Chandra — Annotated)

The energy jet of M87. Glow is caused by synchrotron radiation, high-energy electrons moving along a spiral track along the magnetic field, first discovered in 1956 by Geoffrey R. Burbidge'a in M87, confirming More

This composite image shows the massive galaxy cluster MACS J0717.5+3745 (MACS J0717, for short), where four separate galaxy clusters have been involved in a collision — the first time such a phenomenon has bee More

A powerful collision of galaxy clusters has been captured by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory. The observations of the cluster known as MACS J0025.4-1222 indicate that a titanic colli More

Cartwheel Galaxy Makes Waves Public domain photograph related to NASA research activity, space exploration, free to use, no copyright restrictions image - Picryl description

Multiple images of a distant quasar are visible in this combined view from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope. The Chandra data, along with data from ESA's XMM-Newton, were used to More

This composite image shows Messier 60 and the region around it, where data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory are pink and data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope are red, green and blue. Español: Esta ima More

A beautiful new image of two colliding galaxies has been released by NASA's Great Observatories. The Antennae galaxies, located about 62 million light-years from Earth, are shown in this composite image from th More

This is a composite image showing a jet from the black hole at the center of the main galaxy (lower left) striking the edge of a companion galaxy (upper right). X-rays from Chandra (colored purple), visible an More

There are two possible explanations for this 'slingshot' in space: kickback by a triple black hole system, or the effects of gravitational waves produced after two super-massive black holes merged a few millio More

ABOUT THIS IMAGE: This image of the spiral galaxy Messier 101 is a composite of views from the Spitzer Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, and Chandra X-ray Observatory. Each wavelength region shows diffe More

This Great Observatories view of the famous Sombrero galaxy was made using Chandra, Hubble, and Spitzer. The main figure shows the combined image from the three telescopes, while the inset images show the sepa More

"Mini Supernova" Explosion Could Have Big Impact http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/mini-supernova-explosion-could-have-big-impact.html In Hollywood blockbusters, explosions are often among the stars of More

X-ray, Optical & Infrared Images of Eta Carinae http://www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2014/etacar/more.html This multi-panel image shows Eta Carinae in the same field of view using three different telescopes. More

This stunning false-color picture shows off the many sides of the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A. It is made up of images taken by three of NASA's Great Observatories, using three different wavebands of light. More

This composite shows the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant across the spectrum: Gamma rays (magenta) from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope; X-rays (blue, green) from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory; visibl More

These images show the location of a suspected runaway companion star to a titanic supernova explosion witnessed in the year 1572 by the great Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe and other astronomers of that era. Th More

NASA's three Great Observatories -- the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory -- joined forces to probe the expanding remains of a supernova, called Kepler's su More

X-ray & Optical Images of SNR E0519-69.0 - CROP of ORIGINAL VERSION January 22, 2015 http://astropix.ipac.caltech.edu/image/chandra/587b http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2015/iyl/ When a massive star exploded More

Astronomers combined observations from three different observatories to produce this colorful, multiwavelength image of the intricate remains of Supernova 1987A. The red color shows newly formed dust in the ce More

A new look at the famous "Pillars of Creation" with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has allowed astronomers to peer inside the dark columns of gas and dust. This penetrating view of the central region of the More

A composite image of the Crab Nebula showing the X-ray (blue), and optical (red) images superimposed. The size of the X-ray image is smaller because the higher energy X-ray emitting electrons radiate away their More

A star's spectacular death in the constellation Taurus was observed on Earth as the supernova of 1054 A.D. Now, almost a thousand years later, a super dense object — called a neutron star — left behind by the e More

PIA21474: Crab Nebula from Five Observatories In the summer of the year 1054 AD, Chinese astronomers saw a new "guest star," that appeared six times brighter than Venus. So bright in fact, it could be seen dur More

PIA21474: Crab Nebula from Five Observatories In the summer of the year 1054 AD, Chinese astronomers saw a new "guest star," that appeared six times brighter than Venus. So bright in fact, it could be seen du More

Description: At the center of this Chandra image, a pulsar -- only twelve miles in diameter -- is responsible for this X-ray nebula that spans 150 light years. This pulsar is spinning around almost 7 times a se More

Tycho's Supernova Remnant. In 1572, the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe observed and studied the explosion of a star that became known as Tycho's supernova. More than four centuries later, Chandra's image of the More

X-ray & Optical images of Tycho - A long Chandra observation of Tycho has revealed a pattern of X-ray "stripes" never seen before in a supernova remnant. The stripes are seen in the high-energy X-rays (blue) t More

This image shows iron debris in Tycho's supernova remnant. The site of the supernova explosion is shown, as inferred from the motion of the possible companion to the exploded white dwarf. The position of mater More

This Chandra image of the Tycho supernova remnant contains new evidence for what triggered the original supernova explosion. Tycho was formed by a Type Ia supernova, a category of stellar explosion used in mea More

The first detection of Pluto in X-rays has been made using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in conjunction with observations from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft. As New Horizons approached Pluto in late 2014 More

This composite image shows the central region of the spiral galaxy NGC 4151, dubbed the "Eye of Sauron" by astronomers for its similarity to the eye of the malevolent character in "The Lord of the Rings". In More

Description: This composite image from Chandra X-ray data (colored blue) and optical light data from the Hubble (red, green and yellow) shows a divided neighborhood where some 200 hot, young, massive stars resi More

Description: In the Crab Nebula, a rapidly rotating neutron star, or pulsar (white dot near the center), powers the dramatic activity seen by Chandra. The inner X-ray ring is thought to be a shock wave that mar More

Description: This composite image shows the central regions of the nearby Circinus galaxy, located about 12 million light years away. Data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is shown in blue and data from th More

Description: In Chandra's X-ray image (blue) of RCW 108, over 400 sources of X-ray light are seen. Many of these X-ray sources are young stars undergoing massive flaring just as our Sun did billions of years ag More

Messier 82. Composite of Chandra, HST and Spitzer images. X-ray data recorded by Chandra appears in blue; infrared light recorded by Spitzer appears in red; Hubble's observations of hydrogen emission appear in More

In celebration of the International Year of Astronomy 2009, NASA's Great Observatories -- the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory -- have produced a matched t More

X-ray & Optical Images of SNR E0519-69.0 - When a massive star exploded in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to the Milky Way, it left behind an expanding shell of debris called SNR 0519-69.0. Her More

Chandra's image reveals a complex of several multimillion degree Celsius gas clouds in the process of merging to form a massive galaxy cluster. A few of the point-like sources in the image are associated with More

The Chandra image of Abell 2597 revealed a vast cloud of hot gas with two dark cavities - upper left and lower right - about 100,000 light years from the bright center of the cluster. These so-called ghost cav More

Description: This image of NGC 4194 is a composite of X-rays from Chandra (blue) and optical light data from Hubble (orange). Located above the center of the galaxy, the "hair" of the Medusa is a tidal tail for More

Description: This Chandra image provides the first complete census of compact binary stars in the core of the globular cluster known as 47 Tucanae. As the oldest stellar systems in the Milky Way Galaxy, globula More

Description: Chandra's mosaic of images of the Fornax cluster reveals that the vast cloud of ten-million-degree Celsius gas in the core of the cluster has a swept-back cometary shape that extends for more than More

Centaurus A is a galaxy well known for a gargantuan jet blasting away from a central supermassive black hole, which is seen in this new Chandra image. This image - where red, medium, and blue show low, medium, More

Description: Chandra's image of Trumpler 14 shows about 1,600 stars and a diffuse glow from hot X-ray producing gas. The cluster has an unusually high concentration of massive, luminous, young (~1 million years More

Pareidolia is the psychological phenomenon where people see recognizable shapes in clouds, rock formations, or otherwise unrelated objects or data. When Chandra's image of PSR B1509-58, a spinning neutron star More

Description: In a long Chandra exposure lasting over seven days, Centaurus A reveals the effects of the supermassive black hole at its center. Opposing jets of high-energy particles are seen extending to the ou More

This image contains nearly a million seconds worth of Chandra observing time (purple) along with optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope (red, green, and blue). The X-ray data reveal hundreds of point-like More

Description: M82 is a galaxy where stars are forming at rates that are tens or even hundreds of times higher than in a normal galaxy. In this Chandra image (where low, medium, and high-energy X-rays are colored More

These galaxy clusters are part of a large study using Chandra and Hubble that sets new limits on how dark matter - the mysterious substance that makes up most of the matter in the Universe - interacts with itse More

These galaxy clusters are part of a large study using Chandra and Hubble that sets new limits on how dark matter - the mysterious substance that makes up most of the matter in the Universe - interacts with itse More

These galaxy clusters are part of a large study using Chandra and Hubble that sets new limits on how dark matter - the mysterious substance that makes up most of the matter in the Universe - interacts with itse More

These galaxy clusters are part of a large study using Chandra and Hubble that sets new limits on how dark matter - the mysterious substance that makes up most of the matter in the Universe - interacts with itse More

These galaxy clusters are part of a large study using Chandra and Hubble that sets new limits on how dark matter - the mysterious substance that makes up most of the matter in the Universe - interacts with itse More

These galaxy clusters are part of a large study using Chandra and Hubble that sets new limits on how dark matter - the mysterious substance that makes up most of the matter in the Universe - interacts with itse More

These galaxy clusters are part of a large study using Chandra and Hubble that sets new limits on how dark matter - the mysterious substance that makes up most of the matter in the Universe - interacts with its More

Description: This composite image of Eta Carinae from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope shows the remnants of a massive eruption from the star during the 1840s. The X-ray data (yellow) More

This debris field, which glows brightly in X-rays, was left over when a star exploded about 4,500 years ago. This object, known as G299.2-2.9, belongs to a particular class of supernovas called Type Ia. Astrono More

Description: Over 400 years ago, Johannes Kepler and many others witnessed the appearance of a new "star" in the sky. Today, this object is known as the Kepler supernova remnant. Previously, astronomers have d More

X-ray data from Chandra have revealed that NGC 2207 and IC 2163, currently in the process of colliding with one another, have produced one of the most bountiful collections of super bright X-ray lights called " More

Description: A long Chandra observation of the Kepler supernova remnant provides unprecedented detail of one of the youngest supernovas in the Galaxy. Studying the debris of this exploded star helps in the unde More

Description: This deep Chandra X-ray Observatory image shows the supernova remnant Kes 75, located almost 20,000 light years away. The explosion of a massive star created the supernova remnant, along with a pul More

This image combines NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observations with data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. As well as the electric blue ram pressure stripping streaks seen emanating from ESO 137-001, a gian More

Description: Chandra's image shows hot gas flowing away from massive stars clustered in the center of the Horseshoe Nebula (pink) that are only about a million years old. This gas shows up as the red regions, w More

Description: Two Chandra observations of the giant elliptical galaxy M87 were combined to make this long-exposure image. A central jet is surrounded by nearby bright arcs and dark cavities in the multimillion d More

When scientists first discovered this galaxy cluster in 2012 with Chandra and ground-based optical telescopes, they nicknamed it "El Gordo" (the "fat one" in Spanish) because of its gigantic mass. New data from More

Description: In Chandra's X-ray data, N49 shows million-degree gas in its center (blue), while Spitzer reveals much cooler, infrared-emitting gas at the remnant's outer regions (red). Unique filamentary structu More

A supernova in the galaxy M82 about 11.4 million light years from Earth. New Chandra data gives insight into the explosion that produced SN 2014J, one of the closest supernovas discovered in decades. SN 2014J i More

3C58 is the remnant of a supernova observed in the year 1181 AD by Chinese and Japanese astronomers. This new Chandra image shows the center of 3C58, which contains a rapidly spinning neutron star surrounded by More

In 1054 AD, Chinese astronomers and others around the world noticed a new bright object in the sky. This Ònew starÓ was, in fact, the supernova explosion that created what is now called the Crab Nebula. At the More

Description: More than four centuries after Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe first observed the supernova that bears his name, the supernova remnant it created is now a bright source of X-rays. The supersonic expa More

Description: This new Chandra image is, in fact, 22 separate pointings of the telescope that have been stitched together to look at the famous Carina Nebula like never before. In this image, low, medium, and h More

At a distance of about 20,000 light years, G292.0+1.8 is one of only three supernova remnants in the Milky Way known to contain large amounts of oxygen. These oxygen-rich supernovas are of great interest to ast More

The supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way may be producing tiny particles, called neutrinos, that have virtually no mass and carry no electric charge. This Chandra image shows the region around More

Description: The peculiar butterfly shape of NGC 6240 was caused by the collision of two smaller galaxies. Chandra's high-resolution image of the galaxy's central region revealed not one, but two active giant b More

Description: This image of the elliptical galaxy NGC 1132 and its surrounding region combines data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope. The blue/purple in the image is the X-ray More

Description: Chandra's image of NGC 3576 (lower-energy X-rays in red, higher-energy X-rays in blue) reveals a cluster of point-like X-ray sources, some of which are massive young stars that are shredding the ga More

Description: The Orion Nebula is one of the closest star formation regions from Earth at a distance of 1,500 light years. A favorite for amateur astronomers and casual sky watchers, Orion is seen as never befor More

Description: This Chandra image was produced by observing the Orion Nebula almost continuously for thirteen days. The long observation enabled scientists to study the X-ray behavior of young Sun-like stars with More

This Chandra image of Sgr A* and the region around it was based on almost two weeks of observing time. A theoretical model based on these deep data has been produced to help explain why this giant black hole More

Description: Chandra's three-color image (inset) of a region of Puppis A (blue ROSAT wide-angle image) reveals a cloud being torn apart by a shockwave produced by a supernova explosion. This is the first X-ray More

Description: A supernova remnant located about 14,700 light years from Earth toward the center of the Milky Way. G350.1+0.3 is a young and exceptionally bright supernova remnant in our Galaxy. While many super More

Description: This Chandra image shows a region of the Rosette Nebula. Massive young stars in the central regions of the Nebula produce strong winds that slam into cooler gas. These collisions create a cloud of More

Description: Chandra's image of Saturn shows that its X-radiation is concentrated along the equator. The X-ray spectrum, or the distribution of X-rays according to energy, was found to be similar to that of X-r More

Description: The Chandra X-ray image of Sirius A & B, a double star system located 8.6 light years from Earth, shows a bright source and a dim source. The central bright source is Sirius B, a dense white dwarf More

Chandra's image of SN 1006 shows X-rays from multimillion degree gas (red/green) and high-energy electrons (blue). In the year 1006 a "new star" appeared in the sky and in just a few days it became brighter th More

Description: Chandra's image of this supernova remnant shows a bright ring of high-energy particles with a central point-like source. This observation enabled scientists to use the giant Arecibo Radio Telescope More

This Chandra image of Sgr A* and the surrounding region was made from a 164 hours of observation time over a two-week period. During this time the black hole flared up in X-ray intensity half a dozen or more t More

Description: G11.2-0.3 is a circularly symmetric supernova remnant that contains a dense, rotating dead star at its center, representing a textbook case of what the remnant of an exploding star should look like More