This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its unique location you’ll be able to go to the hyperlink bellow:
https://www.space.com/astronomy/galaxies/supernova-blast-sculpts-ghostly-hand-shaped-nebula-in-the-cosmos-video
and if you wish to take away this text from our website please contact us
A glowing hand stretches throughout the cosmos, with its palm and fingers sculpted from the wreckage of an enormous stellar explosion.
The eerie construction is a part of the nebula MSH 15-52, powered by pulsar B1509-58 — a quickly spinning neutron star that’s solely about 12 miles (20 kilometers) in diameter. By combining radio information from the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) with X-rays from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers created a brand new view of the nebula, which spans over 150 light-years and resembles a human hand reaching towards the stays of the supernova — formally often called RCW 89 — that fashioned the pulsar on the coronary heart of the picture.
“MSH 15–52 and RCW 89 show many unique features not found in other young sources,” in line with a statement from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, releasing the brand new composite picture. “There are, however, still many open questions regarding the formation and evolution of these structures.”
The central object, pulsar B1509-58, fashioned when an enormous star ran out of gasoline and collapsed earlier than exploding as a supernova. The pulsar spins practically seven occasions per second and has a magnetic discipline some 15 trillion occasions stronger than Earth’s. Despite its small dimension, it acts like a cosmic dynamo, accelerating particles to excessive energies and driving winds that carve the nebula into its hand-like type.
The new composite picture paints the system in hanging coloration: ATCA radio emission seems in pink, Chandra’s X-rays glow in blue, orange and yellow, and optical information exhibits hydrogen fuel in gold. Where the radio and X-ray indicators overlap, they mix into purple, highlighting areas the place the pulsar’s wind crashes into surrounding stellar debris.
The recent radio data uncovered delicate filaments aligned with magnetic fields, likely created as the pulsar wind smashes into leftover material from the stellar explosion.
Yet some of the most prominent X-ray features — including a jet near the pulsar and the bright “fingers” that extend outward — have no radio counterpart. Astronomers suspect these areas may be streams of energetic particles escaping along magnetic field lines, much like the shockwave from a supersonic aircraft.
Nearby, the supernova remnant RCW 89 contributes further mystery. Its patchy radio glow overlaps with clumps visible in X-rays and optical light, suggesting a collision with a dense cloud of hydrogen gas. Even stranger, a sharp X-ray boundary thought to be the expanding blast wave from the supernova shows no radio signal at all — an unexpected finding for a young remnant.
Together, MSH 15-52 and RCW 89 continue to intrigue astronomers. While the new image reveals new clues about the exploded star and its environment, further research is needed to better understand how pulsars and supernova debris interact to sculpt such stunning cosmic structures.
Their findings using the new high-resolution radio observations of MSH 15-52 and RCW 89 were published Aug. 20 within the Astrophysical Journal.
This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its unique location you’ll be able to go to the hyperlink bellow:
https://www.space.com/astronomy/galaxies/supernova-blast-sculpts-ghostly-hand-shaped-nebula-in-the-cosmos-video
and if you wish to take away this text from our website please contact us
