Chandra Release - March 18, 2013

Visual Description: Kepler's Supernova Remnant

The image shows an X-ray and optical view of Kepler's Supernova Remnant.  It features a bright nebula with tips of purple-blue and splotches of green, pink and pale yellow. The remnant looks small on its large dark background with many cream colored stars dotted around it. The structure of the remnant is irregularly shaped, resembling a shell from the ocean, with a texture that looks lit up and knotted. The red, green and blue colors show low, intermediate and high energy X-rays observed with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory respectively, and the star field is from the Digitized Sky Survey.