Fig.2: left panel: Optical image of rho Ophiuchi molecular cloud (from Digitized Sky Survey). right panel: Molecular map of rho Ophiuchi cloud (13CO map Nanten Telescope of Nagoya Univ.).
 

Fig.3: 6 square light years field X-ray image around rho Ophiuchi molecular cloud. Red color represents less absorbed X rays, while blue represents absorbed X rays.
 

Fig.4: Movie in X-ray band of rho Ophiuchi molecular cloud core F. The green bar indicates the time from 0 hours to 27 hours by the length.
 

Fig.5: 1 sqare lightyear field image around the northern part of OMC-3 in the 0.5-6 keV band overlaid with a radio (dust emission) contour map from Chini et al. (1997). Red color represents less absorbed X rays, while blue represents absorbed X rays. Two X-ray sources are detected from dense dust condensations with most likely Class 0 protostars (they are shown by two arrows).
 

Other information is available at
http://www.astro.psu.edu./users/tsuboi/HEADpress/pressRelease/
or
http://www-cr.scphys.kyoto-u.ac.jp/research/xray/press200011/pressRelease/

Additional contacts:
Dr. Yohko Tsuboi, (Penn State University, +1-814-865-0150,
Prof. Katsuji Koyama, (Kyoto University, +81-75-753-3833,
Dr. Kensuke Imanishi, (Kyoto University, +81-75-753-3851,