AAS 207th Meeting, 8-12 January 2006
Session 132 Views of the Magellanic Clouds Across Wavelengths
Poster, Wednesday, 9:20am-6:30pm, January 11, 2006, Exhibit Hall

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[132.09] A Chandra X-ray Study of 30 Doradus

L. K. Townsley, P. S. Broos, E. D. Feigelson (PSU), B. R. Brandl (Leiden), Y.-H. Chu (UIUC), G. P. Garmire, K. V. Getman, G. G. Pavlov (PSU)

We present an X-ray tour of the 30 Doradus star-forming complex in the Large Magellanic Cloud using high-spatial-resolution X-ray images and spatially-resolved spectra obtained with the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer aboard the Chandra X-ray Observatory. R136, the central massive star cluster, is resolved at the arcsecond level into over 100 X-ray sources. Two orders of magnitude of scatter in LX/Lbol is seen among R136 O stars, suggesting that X-ray emission depends critically on the details of wind properties and binarity. Yet the dominant X-ray feature in 30 Doradus remains the intricate network of diffuse emission created by interacting stellar winds and supernovae working together to create vast superbubbles filled with hot plasma. Through X-ray studies of 30 Doradus the complete life cycle of a massive stellar cluster is revealed.

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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 37 #4
© 2005. The American Astronomical Soceity.