Chandra celebrates 1st birthday with galactic 'superbubbles'

larger   The bright, fuzzy patches are superbubbles thousands of light years in diameter.

(CNN) -- A galactic merger spewing giant bubbles of hot gas could offer clues about the evolution of the Milky Way and the early universe. Astronomers spied the colliding galaxies in unprecedented detail while using the Chandra X-ray Observatory, which observed the first anniversary of working operations this week.

The collision of the two Antennae Galaxies in the constellation Corvus has produced "superbubbles" whose sheer numbers and X-ray luminosity have astonished astronomers.

Shock waves from the violent crashes compressed large clouds of gas and debris, leading to the birth of millions of stars, Chandra project scientists said. The stars exploded several million years later into brilliant supernovas, hot gas clouds loaded with elements like oxygen and iron. The expanding bubbles in turn collided into one another to produce superbubbles some 5,000 light-years across.

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"What we are witnessing with Chandra is galaxy ecology in action," said Chandra scientist Andrea Zezas in a statement. The superbubbles enrich galaxies with heavy elements, which could condense additional clouds, creating more stars and supernovas "in a continuing cycle of star birth, death and renewal," Zezas said.

Many scientists think the Milky Way formed from a merger similar to that taking place with the Antennae Galaxies, so named because of their wispy, antennae-like streams, first observed by optical telescopes.

The galactic pair, about 60 million light years away, could resemble conditions in the universe some 15 billion years ago when galaxies first began forming.

"Galaxies were much closer together then," said lead scientist Giuseppina Fabbiano in a statement. "Collisions like the ones that produced the Antennae were much more common and played a major role in shaping the galaxies we see around us today."

The most sophisticated X-ray observatory ever, NASA's Chandra telescope recorded its first focused image on August 19, 1999.

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Glimpse of gamma-ray burst galaxy sheds light on star births, deaths
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Chandra's X-ray vision of universe awes, puzzles
June 8, 2000
Lesson Plan: Supernova Chandra
April 26, 2000

The Chandra X-ray Observatory Center
NASA

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