Chandra Release - February 13, 2013

Visual Description: W49B

The image features a supernova remnant named W49B, which appears as a bright and colorful bat-shaped object.  The image combines X-rays from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in blue and green, radio data from the NSF's Very Large Array in pink, and infrared data from Caltech's Palomar Observatory in yellow. There is a bright blue and green nebula in the center, with edges of hot pink and burnished gold, surrounded by golden stars. It reveals a barrel-shaped nebula consisting of bright infrared rings around a glowing bar of intense X-radiation along the axis.The X-rays in the bar are produced by 15 million degree Celsius gas that is rich in iron and nickel ions. At the ends of the barrel, the X-ray emission flares out to make a hot cap. The X-ray cap is surrounded by a flattened cloud of hydrogen molecules detected in the infrared. These features indicate that jets of hot gas produced in the supernova have encountered a large, dense cloud of gas and dust.