NGC 3576, a luminous gas region in the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way, lies approximately 9,000 light-years away from Earth. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Penn State/L.Townsley et al, Optical: ESO/2.2m telescope
Released to the public for the first time, this Chandra/ESO image shows NGC 3576.
A region of glowing gas in the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way galaxy, NGC 3576 is located about 9,000 light-years from Earth. Such nebulas present a tableau of the drama of the evolution of massive stars, from the formation in vast dark clouds, their relatively brief (a few million years) lives, and the eventual destruction in supernova explosions. The diffuse X-ray data detected by Chandra (blue) are likely due to the winds from young, massive stars that are blowing throughout the nebula. Optical data from ESO are shown in orange and yellow.
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Every year, October is designated as American Archive Month. While many people may think “archive” means only dusty books and letters, there are, in fact, many other types of important archives. This includes the use of archives for major telescopes and observatories like NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
The Chandra Data Archive (CDA) plays a central role in the mission by enabling the astronomical community – as well as the general public – access to data collected by the observatory. The primary role of the CDA is to store and distribute data, which the CDA does with the help of powerful search engines. The CDA is one of the legacies of the Chandra mission that will serve both the scientific community and the public for decades to come.
To celebrate and support American Archive Month, we have selected images from a group of eight objects in the CDA to be released to the public for the first time. These images represent the observations of thousands of objects that are permanently available to the world thanks to Chandra’s archive.
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