NASA’s X-ray telescopes, Chandra and IXPE, have captured images of the ‘bones’ of a cosmic ‘hand’ that died 1,500 years ago. Images shared by the space agency show a giant ‘hand’ with four ‘fingers’ dancing around the Milky Way in purple plumes.
An image of the cosmic hand was released by NASA. (OUR)
According to NASA, when stars use up their nuclear fuel to burn up and collapse in on themselves, they form extremely dense objects called neutron stars. These stars, often endowed with strong magnetic fields, evolve into pulsars. “Young pulsars can create jets of matter and antimatter that travel away from the pulsar poles, along with an intense wind, forming the ‘pulsar wind nebula,'” according to the space agency. can explain in line what a pulsar is
The pulsar PSR B1509-58 was first observed by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. The telescope discovered that it resembles a human hand and is actually a pulsar wind nebula (referred to as MSH 15-52). The pulsar is located at the base of the ‘palm’ nebula and is 16,000 light years from Earth.
The space agency even posted a video of the cosmic ‘hand’ on social media. “Quick overview: X-ray telescopes reveal ‘bones’ of ghostly cosmic arm,” reads the title of a video shared on the Chandra X-ray Observatory’s YouTube channel.
In the description of the video, the observatory mentioned: “Cosmic ‘hand’ X-rayed in new NASA image. NASA’s Chandra and IXPE telescopes joined forces to capture this remarkable image. MSH 15-52 is a cloud of energetic particles that resembles a human hand. Astronomers use this X-ray data to learn more about how objects like this are formed.”
Watch the video shared on YouTube here:
Roger Romani of Stanford University in California, who led the study, said: “The charged particles that produce the X-rays travel along the magnetic field, determining the basic shape of the nebula, just as the bones in a human hand do.”
“We are all familiar with X-rays as a diagnostic medical tool for humans. Here we use X-rays in a different way, but they again reveal information that is otherwise hidden from us.
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Source: newstars.edu.vn