A new bright image obtained NASA spacecraft demonstrates traces of more than one, but at least two exploding stars. This object, known as 30 Doradus B (or briefly 30 Dor B), is part of a large space region, where the stars have been formed over the past 8-10 million years. This is a complex landscape of dark gas clouds, young stars, high-energy, and overheated gas, located 160 thousand light-years from Earth in a large Magellanic cloud, a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.
Image 30 Dor B was created by combining data in the X-ray range from the Chandra Observatory (in purple), optical data from the Blanco telescope in Chile (orange and blue), and infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope. Optical data from the Hubble telescope in black and white were also added to emphasize the clear features of the image.
Astronomers, under the leadership of Wei-an University of National Taiwann in Taibe, Taiwan, conducted an analysis of the region using more than two million seconds of Chandra’s observations. They found a dull shell of X-rays, extending about 130 light-years (for comparison, the star closest to the Sun is located about four light-years from us). Candra data also showed that 30 Dor B contains particles emanating from a pulsar that forms the so-called melting of a pulsar wind.
The results of the study described in the article under the leadership of Wei-AN Chen were recently published in an astronomical journal. The co-authors of the article are Chuan-Jui Lee, Yu-Jua Chu, Shutaro Wedar, Kuo-Sun Van, Sheng-yuan Liu from the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics of the Academy Sinitsa in Taibea, Taiwan, and Bo-AN CHEN from the National Taiwan University.
Researchers came to the conclusion that one explosion of supernova is not enough to explain the observed phenomena. Pulsar and bright X-rays in the center of 30 DOR B probably arose as a result of an explosion of a supernova after a collapse of a massive star about 5000 years ago. However, a larger, dull shell of X-rays is too large to be the result of the same event.
Scientists believe that at least two supernova explosions occurred in 30 Dor B, while the X-ray was formed by another supernova