Astronomy Picture of the Day -- X-ray Echoes from Circinus X-1

NASA ^ | August 05, 2015 | (see photo credit)

[SunkenCiv]

Explanation: Circinus X-1 is an X-ray binary star known for its erratic variability. In the bizarre Circinus X-1 system, a dense neutron star, the collapsed remnant of a supernova explosion, orbits with a more ordinary stellar companion. Observations of the X-ray binary in months following an intense X-ray flare from the source in 2013 progressively revealed striking concentric rings - bright X-ray light echoes from four intervening clouds of interstellar dust. In this X-ray/optical composite, the swaths of Chandra Observatory X-ray image data showing partial outlines of the rings are in false colors. Remarkably, timing the X-ray echoes, along with known distances to the interstellar dust clouds, determines the formerly highly uncertain distance to Circinus X-1 itself to be 30,700 light-years.

[SunkenCiv]

[X-ray Image Credit: NASA/CXC/Univ. Wisconsin-Madison/S.Heinz et al; Optical Image Credit: DSS]

[SunkenCiv]

The Big One

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[onyx]

WOW!!!!

That’s a beauty!!!

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

[Kirkwood]

False colors. Maybe its Maybelline.