Chandra Release - October 18, 2000

Visual Description: Zeta Orionis

The image is a Chandra X-ray Observatory image featuring the O-star Zeta Orionis, which is a blue supergiant star in the constellation Orion.  The image is dominated by speckled shades of blue and black, with some red and orange at the center.  Key structures in the image include a bright red-orange dot with a smaller dot just below at 7 o’clock, as well as a diagonal line that extends from the top right corner to the bottom left corner to show the X-ray spectrum. This figure is therefore a composite of the X-ray spectrum and Chandra image of Zeta Orionis. The image (upper right) clearly shows that Zeta Orionis is a binary, or, double, star system. The spatial resolution between the two stars of Zeta Orionis are a mere 2.4 arcseconds away from one another, demonstrating the fantastic resolution capable by Chandra. The color contours in the image are scaled logarithmically in relationship to their X-ray intensities.