We are looking at a binary star system or rather what is left of a binary star system after one of the stars goes supernova. The surviving star is hidden the debris field of the supernova but it survived the explosion. I have to wonder what that star is going through, I’d be surprised if it wasn’t undergoing changes because of the explosion, I can picture siesmic waves ringing through it. We will probably never know for sure.
The image above is a composite of contributions from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes including those in Chili and the Digitized Sky Survey.
There are desktop sizes to the image and they are wonderful! You can get them and read the details on DEM L241 here.