Spiral Galaxy M33 (XMM/EPIC)

The spiral galaxy M33 is beside M31 in the constellation Andromeda the second largest companion galaxy of our Milky Way in the local group. Its disk is in such a position that it can be seen nearly head-on; the ellipse indicates the optical dimensions of the galaxy. The image shows an X-ray color presentation of 15 slightly displaced XMM-Newton observations combined from data of the PN and MOS cameras. The colors cover the energy region from 0.2 to 4.5 keV whereby the energies increase from red over green to blue. The source near the center of M33 is the brightest X-ray source in the local group and can be explained by its X-ray spectrum and temporal variation as an X-ray binay star system with a massive black hole. In M33 we still discover with the EPIC cameras X-ray point sources which are ten times weaker than those found in the deep ROSAT observations. The sources appear, depending on type, in different colors, as stars in our Milky Way, as supernova remnants, as extreme soft sources in M33 in red and yellow, as X-ray binary stars in M33 and as sources of active galaxies behind M33 in white and blue. X-radiation of hot gas from the inner disk and the spiral arms is detected especially below 1 keV south of the bright nucleus (extended red emission).

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© X-Ray Group at MPE (group)
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