NuSTAR Bringing the High Energy Universe into Focus

 

About the Image

Date
June 24, 2020
ID
nustar200625a
Type
Observation
Credit
Brian Grefenstette, Caltech

Particle Acceleration in the 30 Doradus C Superbubble

30dorc_20200603

High-energy (3--20 keV) X-rays observed by NuSTAR originating from the complete shell of the superbubble 30 Doradus C in the Large Magellanic Cloud (green), superposed on low-energy X-rays (0.5--2 keV; magenta) observed by Chandra and H-alpha emission (orange) from diffuse gas. Due to its proximity to the well-studied SN1987A, 30 Doradus C has been observed for 3 Ms (35 days) with NuSTAR. These data reveal that the superbubble is an efficient particle accelerator, with the hard X-ray emission arising from electrons with up to 100 TeV energies. More details can be found in the paper, available from ApJ (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2020ApJ...893..144L).