AAS 196th Meeting, June 2000
Session 43. Planetary Nebulae and Their Progenitors
Display, Wednesday, June 7, 2000, 10:00am-7:00pm, Empire Hall South

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[43.03] Detection of Extended X-ray Emission from a Planetary Nebula with the Chandra X-ray Observatory

J.H. Kastner (Carlson Center for Imaging Science, Rochester Institute of Technology), N. Soker (University of Haifa, Israel), R. Knill-Dgani (University of Texas), S.A. Rappaport (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), S. Vrtilek (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)

We report the detection of well resolved, extended X-ray emission from the young planetary nebula BD +30\circ 3639 using the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer aboard the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Our Chandra imaging observation provides vivid evidence for the presence of a so-called ``hot bubble'' at the core of this planetary nebula. Such a structure has long been predicted by interacting winds models of planetary nebulae evolution. The X-ray emission from BD +30\circ 3639, though evidently asymmetric, is roughly similar in diameter (~5'') and morphology to the ring of ionized emission seen in high-resolution optical and radio images. Our detection of extended X-ray emission from BD +30\circ 3639 demonstrates the power and utility of Chandra imaging as applied to the study of planetary nebulae.

This research is supported by a NASA Chandra X-ray Observatory grant to Rochester Institute of Technology.


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The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: jhk@cis.rit.edu

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