Chandra Release - August 19, 2020

Visual Description: Kepler's Supernova Remnant

This is a still image of Kepler's Supernova Remnant from a timelapse video taken by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. The remnant in this Chandra view is dominated by pink, peach, blue and purple colors, on a dark background. The structure of the remnant is irregularly shaped, resembling a shell from the ocean, with a texture that looks lit up and knotted. The X-rays are shown in five colors from lower to higher energies: red, yellow, green, blue, and purple. The video tracks the speed of 15 small "knots" of debris in Kepler's supernova remnant, all glowing in X-rays. The fastest knot was measured to have a speed of 23 million miles per hour, the highest speed ever detected of supernova remnant debris in X-rays. The average speed of the knots is about 10 million miles per hour, and the blast wave is expanding at about 15 million miles per hour. These results independently confirm the 2017 discovery of knots travelling at speeds more than 20 million miles per hour in Kepler's supernova remnant.