Chandra Release - September 13, 2007

Visual Description: Coronet Cluster

 The image is a composite of a star-forming region in space called the Coronet Cluster. The visual components of the image include sparkling celestial objects of stars, nebulae, and gas clouds. The center of image has a slightly hazy texture, appearing somewhat cloudy or smoky. The stars in the image are bright and shiny with some stars brighter than others, and varying degrees of luminosity.  The colors in the image are predominantly pink-red and purple with a sprinkling of beige, blue and green towards the center.  One of the most prominent features in the image is a bright spot near the center of the image with a patch of luminous stars. This composite image shows the Coronet in X-rays from Chandra (pink and purple) and infrared emission from Spitzer (red, green, and cyan). The Spitzer image shows young stars plus diffuse emission from dust. In the Chandra data, many of these young stars appear as blue objects, revealing their output of high-energy X-rays and the amount of obscuring dust and gas in the region. The reason for the blue appearance is that lower energy X-rays, which are depicted as red and green, are absorbed by this veil of material and hence are not seen.