X-ray Evidence Supports Possible New Class Of Supernova

DEM L238 and DEM L249 are two supernova remnants in the Large Magellanic Cloud. X-ray data from NASA's Chandra and ESA's XMM-Newton observatories suggest that the stars responsible for these debris fields were unusually young when they were destroyed by thermonuclear explosions. The large field-of-view is a composite image of DEM L238 (right) and DEM L249, Chandra X-ray data in blue and optical data in white. The inset reveals how DEM L238 appears in the three bands of X-ray emission (low energy X-rays are shown in red, medium energies in green and high energies in blue.) The central region of DEM L238 is green which indicates that it is rich in iron. This overabundance of iron identifies this object as a so-called Type Ia supernova, one possible explosive death of a star. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/NCSU/K.Borkowski; Optical: NOAO/CTIO/MCELS