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P.P. Plucinsky, R.J. Edgar, T.J. Gaetz (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA), W.P. Blair (JHU), P.O. Slane, R. Smith (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA)
We present initial results from two Chandra/ACIS observations of the so-called Vela ``Bullet D'' region on the eastern limb of the Vela supernova remnant. The Bullet D region is a bright X-ray feature, identified by Aschenbach et al. from the ROSAT All-Sky Survey, which protrudes beyond the blast wave on the east side of the remnant. It has been suggested that this feature is a fragment of supernova ejecta which is just now pushing beyond the position of the main blast wave. An alternate explanation is that the feature is a ``break-out'' of the shock in which inhomogeneities in the ambient medium cause the shock to be non-spherical. We will use the imaging and spectral capabilities of the Chandra/ACIS instrument to distinguish between these competing explanations.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: plucinsky@cfa.harvard.edu