June 6, 2000 CXC PR: 00-16 NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has
imaged for the first time a "hot bubble" of gas surrounding a
dying, Sun-like star. This large region of very hot gas in the
planetary nebula BD+30 3639 has a peculiar shape and contains
elements produced in the core of the dying star. "The new
Chandra image offers conclusive proof for the existence of the
"hot bubble" that theorists have long predicted," said Professor
Joel Kastner, of the Chester F. Carlson Center of Imaging
Science at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Kastner leads
a team of scientists who reported on this observation at the
196th national meeting of the American Astronomical Society in
Rochester, New York. The Chandra image shows a region of 3
million degree Celsius gas that appears to fit inside the shell
of ionized gas seen by the Hubble Space Telescope. The optical
and X-ray emitting regions of BD+30 3639, which lies between
5000 and 8000 light years away, are roughly one million times
the volume of our solar system.