Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

NGC 2024 Chandra X-Ray Point Source Catalog

Metadata Updated: September 19, 2025

The NGC 2024 Chandra X-Ray Point Source Catalog contains the results of a sensitive 76 ks Chandra observation of the young stellar cluster in NGC 2024, lying at a distance of ~415 pc in the Orion B giant molecular cloud. Previous infrared observations have shown that this remarkable cluster contains several hundred embedded young stars, most of which are still surrounded by circumstellar disks. Thus, it presents a rare opportunity to study X-ray activity in a large sample of optically invisible protostars and classical T Tauri stars (CTTSs) undergoing accretion. Chandra detected 283 X-ray sources, of which 248 were identified with counterparts at other wavelengths, mostly in the near-infrared. Astrometric registration of Chandra images against the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) resulted in positional offsets of ~0.25" near field center, yielding high confidence identifications of infrared counterparts. The Chandra detections are characterized by hard, heavily absorbed spectra and specular variability. Spectral analysis of more than 100 of the brightest X-ray sources yields a mean V-band extinction of ~10.5 magnitudes and typical plasma energies <kT> ~ 3 keV. Chandra detected all but one of a sample of 27 classical T Tauri stars (CTTSs) identified from previous near- and mid-infrared photometry, and their X-ray and bolometric luminosities are correlated. IRS 2b, which is thought to be a massive embedded late O or early B star that may be the ionizing source of NGC 2024, is detected as an X-ray source. Seven millimeter-bright cores (FIR 1-7) in NGC 2024 that may be protostellar were not detected, with the possible exception of faint emission near the unusual core FIR 4. This table was created by the HEASARC in January 2007 based on CDS table J/ApJ/598/375/table1.dat. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 19, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 19, 2025
Publisher High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center
Maintainer
Identifier ivo://nasa.heasarc/ngc2024cxo
Data Last Modified 2025-09-10
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 26140973-1dd8-42f0-8d6a-3734702f59bb
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/W3Browse/all/ngc2024cxo.html
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 40b5194cb456ac609d0a5795c2ae1f3177aedbbc6952c05261408dd7bce4a345
Source Schema Version 1.1

Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.