Chandra Release - September 11, 2012

Visual Description: Kepler's Supernova Remnant

An image of Kepler's Supernova Remnant shows a composite of visible light and X-rays. The remnant itself is dominated by pink, peach, blue and purple colors, on a dark background with many little points of light blue and yellow around it. The structure of the remnant is irregularly shaped, resembling a shell from the ocean, with a texture that looks lit up and knotted.  This image includes X-ray data from Chandra from more than 8 days worth of observing time. The X-rays are shown in five colors from lower to higher energies: red, yellow, green, blue, and purple. These various X-ray slices were then combined with an optical image from the Digitized Sky Survey (colored in the light yellow and blue), showing stars in the field.