Chandra Release - October 28, 2003

Visual Description: NGC 1637

These Chandra observations of the spiral galaxy NGC 1637 are mostly deep orange on black with some small multicolored dots.  Over a span of 21 months, intense neutron star and black hole X-ray sources flashed on and off, giving the galaxy the appearance of cosmic orange holiday lights.   The image consists of four panels, each displaying a different day of Chandra observations (day 4, 49, 495 and 633). The panels show a close-up view of the galaxy's core, which appears as a bright orange blobby dot in the center with fainter orange structures and dots surrounding it. A supernova, SN1999em, appears in panels for days 4 and 49 as a faint source at the five o'clock position just below a diffuse glow in the center of the image. The extremely bright white source that appears in all panels at the nine o'clock position is likely a black hole that formed relatively recently (in the last million years or so) and is now pulling in gas from an orbiting companion star.