LMC N49
N49 or LMC N49 (PKS 0525-66, PKS B0525-661, PKS J0525-6604, SNR J052559-660453), also known as Brasil Nebula, is the brightest supernova remnant in the Large Magellanic Cloud, approximately 160,000 light-years from Earth. Its form has been assessed to be roughly 5,000 years old.
The latest pictures of N49 by the Chandra X-ray Observatory have revealed a bullet-shaped object traveling at about 5 million miles an hour away from a bright X-ray and gamma-ray point source, probably a neutron star with an extremely powerful magnetic field, known as a soft gamma repeater. A particularly strong gamma-ray burst from LMC N49 was detected on March 5, 1979.
References
- ^ "SNR J052559-660453". SIMBAD. Centre de données astronomiques de Strasbourg.
- ^ Chandra X-ray Observatory (2010-05-24). "N49: Stellar Shrapnel Seen in Aftermath of Explosion". Retrieved 2015-10-15.
- ^ "PKS 0525-66". NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Encyclopedia.
- ^ Sky & Telescope, august 2004, page 12
- ^ "N49, an asymmetric supernova remnant in the LMC". 2012-08-30. Retrieved 2015-10-15.
- Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, "N49: A supernova remnant in the Large Magellanic Cloud"
