Portal:Radiation astronomy/Pictures/1

Infrared images from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) are combined in this image of RCW 86, the dusty remains of the oldest documented example of an exploding star, or supernova. The infrared images, when combined with optical and X-ray data, clearly indicate that the source of the mysterious object seen in the sky over 1,800 years ago must have been a Type Ia supernova. On Wikiversity is a fair use image of RCW86 that combines an X-ray image from Chandra and XMM-Newton of RCW 86. Low energy X-rays are in red, medium energies in green, and high energies in blue. RCW 86 was created by a star that exploded about 2,000 years ago. RA 14:45:02.30 Dec -62°20′32.00″, observation date: June 15, 2004. Credit: Chandra: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Utrecht/J.Vink et al. XMM-Newton: ESA/Univ. of Utrecht/J.Vink et al.