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LMC 30 Doradus Complex Chandra X-Ray Point Source Catalog

Metadata Updated: April 10, 2026

This table contains the results of a study of the X-ray point-source population of the 30 Doradus (30 Dor) star-forming complex in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) using high spatial-resolution X-ray images and spatially-resolved spectra obtained with the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) on board the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. The observation of ~21 ks was made on 1999 September 21 and placed the cluster R136 at the aim point of the ACIS Imaging Array (ACIS-I). This table lists the the X-ray sources detected in the 17' x 17' field centered on R136, the massive star cluster which lies at the center of the main 30 Dor nebula. 20 of the 32 Wolf-Rayet stars in the ACIS field are detected. The cluster R136 is resolved at the sub-arcsecond level into almost 100 X-ray sources, including many typical O3-O5 stars, as well as a few bright X-ray sources which had been previously reported. Over 2 orders of magnitude of scatter in the X-ray luminosity L<sub>x</sub> (calculated assuming a distance of 50 kpc) is seen among R136 O stars, suggesting that X-ray emission in the most massive stars depends critically on the details of wind properties and the binarity of each system, rather than reflecting the widely reported characteristic value L<sub>x</sub>/L<sub>bol</sub> ~ 10<sup>-7</sup>. Such a canonical ratio may exist for single massive stars in R136, but these data are too shallow to confirm this relationship. Through this and more recent X-ray studies of 30 Dor, the complete life cycle of a massive stellar cluster can be revealed. This HEASARC table contains both the primary high-significance X-ray sources as well as some lower-significance tentative X-ray sources. The latter sources should not be considered definitive. A subsequent Chandra observation of this field, with several times the exposure of this observation, will result in a longer, more complete list of point sources than that given in this paper. This table was created by the HEASARC in February 2007 based on the merger of electronic versions of Tables 1, 2 and 5 from the above reference which were obtained from the AJ website. It does not include the results from the spectral analysis of 49 of the X-ray sources having a photometric significance (signal-to-noise ratio) greater than 2 which are presented in Tables 3 and 4 of the reference paper. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: See this page for license information.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date April 10, 2026

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date April 10, 2026
Publisher High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center
Maintainer
Identifier ivo://nasa.heasarc/lmc30drcxo
Data Last Modified 2026-04-06
Category Astrophysics
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 58194ef3-b58b-4d83-82f9-801f780fd791
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL ivo://nasa.heasarc/lmc30drcxo
License https://www.usa.gov/government-works
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 56fd6fa3ded8e0e008750096451a96b6fa9ce9d84f241ea91d39513cea0f2873
Source Schema Version 1.1

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