Chandra Release - May 24, 2011

Visual Description: Carina Nebula

The X-ray image of the Carina Nebula features purple and pink colors with a touch of ice blue at the core. The nebula is loosely in the shape of an arch and a bow with speckles and blobs of material all around it. This Chandra image shows a star-forming region in the Sagittarius-Carina arm of the Milky Way a mere 7,500 light years from Earth. Chandra's sharp X-ray vision detected over 14,000 stars in this region, reveals a diffuse X-ray glow, and provides strong evidence that massive stars have already self-destructed in this nearby supernova factory.  The lower energy X-rays in this image are colored red, the medium energy X-rays are green, and the highest energy X-rays are blue. The Chandra survey has a large field of 1.4 square degrees, made of a mosaic of 22 individual Chandra pointings. In total, this image represents 1.2 million seconds -- or nearly two weeks -- of Chandra observing time.