Chandra Release - November 15, 2007

Visual Description: NGC 281

  This image of the star-forming region NGC 281 shows a bright blue and purple streak through a larger red, orange and yellow nebula, which appears illuminated towards the central area. Surrounding this area, there are several darker, irregularly shaped clouds of gas and dust. The bright part of the nebula appears ethereal, while the surrounding edges and clouds have a more rugged and uneven texture. NGC 281 is a bustling hub of star formation about 10,000 light years away. This composite image of optical and X-ray emission includes regions where new stars are forming and older regions containing stars about 3 million years old. The optical data (seen in the red, orange, and yellows) show a small open cluster of stars, large lanes of obscuring gas and dust, and dense knots where stars may still be forming. The X-ray data (blue-purple), based on a Chandra observation lasting more than a day, shows a different view. More than 300 individual X-ray sources are captured, most of them associated with the central cluster.