Glowing Remnant from a Star-Shattering Explosion This "true
color" Chandra image of N132D shows the beautiful, complex
remnant of an explosion of a massive star in the Large
Magellanic Cloud, a nearby galaxy about 160,000 light years from
Earth. The colors represent different ranges of X-rays, with
red, green, and blue representing, low, medium, and higher X-ray
energies respectively. Supernova remnants comprise debris of a
stellar explosion and any matter in the vicinity that is
affected by the expanding debris. In the case of N132D, the
horseshoe shape of the remnant is thought to be due to shock
waves from the collision of the supernova ejecta with cool giant
gas clouds. As the shock waves move through the gas they heat it
to millions of degrees, producing the glowing X-ray shell.