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Sequence: Highlights of the ROSAT Mission (16/25)

Super Soft X-ray Sources - Discovered with ROSAT

The new class of super soft X-ray sources (SSS) and the Galactic foreground stars emerge yellow or red. The nearly five million-degree interstellar gas in the LMC is manifested by the diffuse green emission. SSS are thought to be white dwarfs accreting matter from a binary companion star with a rate sufficient to produce steady nuclear burning on the white dwarf surface. In contrast to other accreting X-ray binaries, where the gravitational potential energy powers the X-ray source, nuclear burning is the primary energy source in SSS.

[ROSAT LMC Sources]
The ROSAT survey of a 13.5° × 15.5° region in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Here, the energy picture is given. 516 X-ray sources were discovered.

Greiner, J., G. Hasinger, and P. Kahabka, Rosat observation of two supersoft sources in the large magellanic cloud, Astro. & Astrophys. 246, L17-L20 (1991)
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Author: osc, Date: 97/11/05 10:28:43, Attributes

[Highlights of the ROSAT Mission]