Chandra Release - October 12, 2011

Visual Description: G299.2-2.9

The composite image features a supernova remnant known as G299.2-2.9. The background of the image is dark, with a prominent sprinkling of white stars. At the center of the image, there is a large burnished gold horseshoe-like nebula, with irregular areas of brightness and a less densely filled-in center.  This composite image shows G299.2-2.9 in X-ray light from Chandra, along with data from the ROSAT satellite (burnished gold), that has been overlaid on an infrared image from the Two Micron All-Sky Survey (white). The faint X-ray emission from the inner region reveals relatively large amounts of iron and silicon, as expected for a remnant of a Type Ia supernova, produced by the explosion of a white dwarf star. The outer shell of the remnant is complex, with at least a double shell structure. Typically, such a complex outer shell is associated with a star that has exploded into space where gas and dust are not uniformly distributed.