The Chandra Carina Complex Project ( CCCP ) has shown that the Carina Nebula displays bright , spatially-complex soft diffuse X-ray emission .
Here we ‘ sum up ’ the CCCP diffuse emission work by comparing the global morphology and spectrum of Carina ’ s diffuse X-ray emission to other famous sites of massive star formation with pronounced diffuse X-ray emission : M17 , NGC 3576 , NGC 3603 , and 30 Doradus .
All spectral models require at least two diffuse thermal plasma components to achieve adequate spectral fits , a softer component with kT = 0.2–0.6 keV and a harder component with kT = 0.5–0.9 keV .
In several cases these hot plasmas appear to be in a state of non-equilibrium ionization that may indicate recent and current strong shocks .
A cavity north of the embedded giant H II region NGC 3576 is the only region studied here that exhibits hard diffuse X-ray emission ; this emission appears to be nonthermal and is likely due to a recent cavity supernova , as evidenced by a previously-known pulsar and newly-discovered pulsar wind nebula also seen in this cavity .
All of these targets exhibit X-ray emission lines that are not well-modeled by variable-abundance thermal plasmas and that might be attributed to charge exchange at the shock between the hot , tenuous , X-ray-emitting plasma and cold , dense molecular material ; this is likely evidence for dust destruction at the many hot/cold interfaces that characterize massive star-forming regions .