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M 51 Chandra X-Ray Discrete Source Catalog

Metadata Updated: April 10, 2026

This table contains the results of two Chandra observations (separated by 1 year) of the population of X-ray sources in the spiral galaxy M 51 (NGC 5194 and NGC 5195). One hundred and thirteen X-ray sources have been detected in an 8.4' x 8.4'(20.4 x 20.4kpc) region, and 84 and 12 of them project within the disks of NGC 5194 and NGC 5195, respectively. Nine and 28 sources have luminosities exceeding 1 x 10<sup>39</sup> erg/s (ultraluminous X-ray sources or ULXs) and 1 x 10<sup>38</sup> erg/s in the 0.5 - 8 keV band, respectively, assuming that they are associated with M 51. The number of ULXs is much higher than found in most normal spiral and elliptical galaxies. Most of the X-ray sources and all seven of the ULXs in NGC 5194 are located in, or close to, a spiral arm, suggesting a connection with recent star formation. The Chandra observations of M 51 were performed on 2000 June 20 and 2001 June 23 with the ACIS instrument. The background was stable in both observations, and effective exposure times of 14.9 and 26.8ks were obtained for the observations in 2000 and 2001, respectively. This table was created by the HEASARC in March 2007 based on <a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/J/ApJ/601/735">CDS catalog J/ApJ/601/735</a> files table2.dat, table3.dat and table4.dat. 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.

Downloads & Resources

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/m51cxo
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 234cfc24-0d07-481e-bdec-c6764b193fc6
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL ivo://nasa.heasarc/m51cxo
License https://www.usa.gov/government-works
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 8f75cfca7929c87272d260e685780b86423fcaedddbcd61b51b0d87cd4f6b15e
Source Schema Version 1.1

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