2025ApJ...988...16G

The soft X-ray excess and Fe Kα emission lines are widely observed in Seyfert galaxies, with their origin still in debate. We present a detailed spatially resolved image and spectral analysis of the Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC 1068 using high-resolution Chandra ACIS data. We find that the soft X-ray emission and iron emission show extended structures in the northeast and southwest directions. Especially, the soft X-ray extends predominantly in the 1^″-15^″ (∼72 pc-1 kpc) northeast sector with a distance of at least ∼10^″ (∼700 pc), and its 0.5-3.0 keV flux is about ∼2/3 of that from the 1^″ radius circular region centered on the core of NGC 1068. We fit the soft X-ray spectra from the core and two bright blobs (∼3^″, S1 and ∼1$\mathop{.}\limits^{\unicode{x02033}}$5, S2 from the nucleus) as a dual-temperature plasma with two APEC models. Our analysis suggests that the extended soft X-ray emission in NGC 1068, as well as contributions to Fe Kα emission from the extended region, likely originate from the interactions between the jet and the interstellar medium, offering further insights into the origin of soft X-ray excess and Fe Kα emission lines in similar Seyfert sources. However, extended X-ray emission outside the ionization cone might be influenced by additional processes; future multiwavelength observations will be needed to test these possibilities.