Chandra Release - September 13, 2023

Visual Description: Quintet Collection

This release features five separate composite images of cosmic entities, made from data captured in different types of light. To help us explore objects observed in light that is invisible to humans, such as X-ray, infrared, and radio, colors have been assigned to each different type of light.

The first image in the collection is titled Galactic Center. Here, the center of the Milky Way galaxy resembles a pink, orange, red, and purple cloud, dotted with several brilliant orbs of light. Surrounding the cloud is a dense field of purple, orange, red, and pale blue specks that entirely blankets the sky. In this image, orange, blue, and purple represent X-ray light from the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

The second image features Kepler's Supernova Remnant, the remains of a white dwarf star that was destroyed by a thermonuclear explosion. The remnant resembles a knotted ball of crackling blue, red, and white energy, set against a black sky dotted with pale blue specks. Here, red streaks and patches of mottled turquoise represent debris from the destroyed star. A web of translucent electric blue veins that encircles and weaves through the knot represents the powerful blast wave captured by Chandra.

In the third image, a bright, pale pink light encircled by translucent blue swirls rockets toward our upper left, leaving two, long, pink and purple tails behind it. This is ESO 137-001, a galaxy moving through space at 1.5 million miles per hour. Set against a black background packed with gleaming stars, the galaxy's twin tails feature streams of pink floating inside superheated purple gas. Clusters of red dots, hydrogen atoms, appear to travel with the galaxy, alongside the flowing tails. In this image, X-ray light is represented by blue.

The fourth image in this release features a close up of the spiral galaxy NGC 1365, and the supermassive black hole at its center. Here, the galaxy is shown at a dramatic angle, as if the bright pink core is gazing past our right shoulder. Swirls of pale, grey-blue material, resembling waves in a dark ocean, spiral toward the radiant pink core, which hangs at our upper left. Glowing pink circles, and flecks of red, dot the churning spiral galaxy. In this image, X-ray light captured by Chandra is rendered in hot pinks and purples.

The fifth and final image of this release features the Vela Pulsar, the aftermath of a collapsed and exploded star sending a jet of particles into space. The pulsar resembles a soft, pillowy, lavender bean in a pocket of blue gas. A faint stream of gas, the X-ray jet, appears to shoot from the pocket, heading into the distance at our upper right. Purple markings in the lavender bean shape strongly resemble narrow eyes and an open mouth, giving the pulsar a squinting happy face. In this image, X-ray light is shown in blues and purples.