Chandra Release - January 22, 2001

Visual Description: NGC 3603

This Chandra X-ray Observatory image of the star-forming region NGC 3603 is dominated by a large, irregularly shaped red and purple spot in the center, surrounded by smaller dots of mostly bright green with a little red, varying in brightness and size. NGC 3603 is a bustling region of star birth in the Carina spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy, about 20,000 light years from Earth. The X-ray data resolved the multitude of individual X-ray sources in this star-forming region. The intensity of the X-rays observed by Chandra are depicted by the various colors in this image. Green represents lower intensity sources, while purple and red indicate increasing X-ray intensity. The Chandra image reveals dozens of extremely massive stars born in a burst of star formation about two million years ago.