Chandra Release - February 21, 2008

Visual Description: Kes 75

This Chandra X-ray Observatory image of supernova remnant Kes 75  is dominated by purple-pink and blue colors. The image shows a very bright and irregularly shaped spot in the center of the nebula, surrounded by an irregularly shaped cloud of gas and dust. It almost resembles an oddly shaped blue pearl in a pinkish-purple oyster shell.  The explosion of a massive star created the supernova remnant, along with a pulsar, a rapidly spinning neutron star.  Low energy X-rays are colored pink-red in the image and the high energy X-rays are blue. The pulsar is the bright blue spot near the center of the image. The rapid rotation and strong magnetic field of the pulsar have generated a wind of energetic matter and antimatter particles that rush out at near the speed of light. This pulsar wind has created a large, magnetized bubble of high-energy particles called a pulsar wind nebulae, seen as the extended blue region surrounding the pulsar.