Credit: NASA/CXC/Wisconsin/D.Pooley et al.

This is a Chandra X-ray Observatory image of the region around SN 2008D, a supernova that was seen by NASA's Swift satellite in January 2008. The Chandra image was obtained about 10 days after the supernova explosion. The Chandra observations helped show that this was a normal supernova rather than one associated with a gamma ray burst. They were also used to help calculate the variation of the supernova's X-ray emission with time, allowing estimates to be made of the radius of the star that exploded and the mass-loss rate just before the explosion.

Provider: Chandra X-ray Observatory

Image Source: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2008/sn2008d/

Curator: Chandra X-ray Observatory, Cambridge, MA, USA

Image Use Policy: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/image_use.html