  We present XMM-Newton observations of the WC binary Theta Muscae (WR 48), the
second brightest Wolf-Rayet binary in optical wavelengths. The system consists
of a short-period (19.1375 days) WC5/WC6 + O6/O7V binary and possibly has an
additional O supergiant companion (O9.5/B0Iab) which is optically identified at
a separation of ~46 mas. Strong emission lines from highly ionized ions of C,
O, Ne, Mg, Si, S, Ar, Ca and Fe are detected. The spectra are fitted by a
multi-temperature thin-thermal plasma model with an interstellar absorption N_H
= 2--3*10**21 cm**-2. Lack of nitrogen line indicates that the abundance of
carbon is at least an order of magnitude larger than that of nitrogen. A
Doppler shift of ~630 km/s is detected for the OVIII line, while similar shifts
are obtained from the other lines. The reddening strongly suggests that the
emission lines originated from the wind-wind shock zone, where the average
velocity is ~600 km/s. The red-shift motion is inconsistent with a scenario in
which the X-rays originate from the wind-wind collision zone in the
short-period binary, and would be evidence supporting the widely separated O
supergiant as a companion. This may make up the collision zone be lying behind
the short-period binary. In addition to the emission lines, we also detected
the RRC (radiative recombination continuum) structure from carbon around 0.49
keV. This implies the existence of additional cooler plasma.
