Passage: Maffei 1 possesses a tiny blue nucleus at its center approximately 1.2 pc across. It contains about 29 solar masses of ionized hydrogen. This implies that it has undergone recent star formation. There are no signs of an active galactic nucleus (AGN) in the center of Maffei 1. The X-ray emission from the center is extended and likely comes from a number of stellar sources.

Question: where does X-ray emission come from?
a number of stellar sources