NASA's X-ray Telescopes Reveal the "Bones" of a Ghostly Cosmic Hand

NASA's X-ray Telescopes Reveal the "Bones" of a Ghostly Cosmic Hand

In 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays and used them to image the bones in his wife's hand, kicking off a revolutionary diagnostic tool for medicine. Now two of NASA’s X-ray space telescopes have combined their imaging powers to unveil the magnetic field “bones” of a remarkable hand-like structure in space. Together, these telescopes reveal the behavior of a dead collapsed star that lives on through plumes of particles of energized matter.

A small, dense object only twelve miles in diameter is responsible for this beautiful X-ray nebula that spans 150 light years. The story begins around 1,500 years ago when a giant star ran out of nuclear fuel to burn. This led to the star collapsing onto itself and forming an incredibly dense object called a neutron star.

Rotating neutron stars with strong magnetic fields are called pulsars. With today’s telescopes, astronomers use them as laboratories for extreme physics, offering high-energy conditions that cannot be replicated on Earth. For example, young pulsars can create jets of matter and antimatter moving away from the poles of the pulsar, along with an intense wind, forming a “pulsar wind nebula”. These are ideal places to study certain questions in physics.

In 2001, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory first observed the pulsar PSR B1509-58 and revealed that its pulsar wind nebula—known as MSH 15-52—randomly resembles a human hand. The pulsar is located at the base of the “palm” of the nebula. Finger-like structures extend to the north, apparently energizing knots of material in this neighboring gas cloud. The transfer of energy from the wind to these knots makes them glow brightly in X-rays (orange and red features to the upper right). The temperature in this region appears to vary in a circular pattern around this ring of emission, suggesting that the pulsar may be precessing like a spinning top and sweeping an energizing beam around the gas in MSH 15-52.

The combination of rapid rotation and ultra-strong magnetic field makes B1509 one of the most powerful electromagnetic generators in the Galaxy. This generator drives an energetic wind of electrons and ions away from the neutron star. As the electrons move through the magnetized nebula, they radiate away their energy and create the elaborate nebula

Astronomers think that B1509 is about 1,700 years old as measured in Earth's time-frame (referring to when events are observable at Earth) and is located about 17,000 light years away. B1509 is spinning completely around almost 7 times every second and is releasing energy into its environment at a prodigious rate—presumably because it has an intense magnetic field at its surface, estimated to be 15 trillion times stronger than the Earth's magnetic field. B1509's nebula is 15 times wider than the Crab Nebula.

Now, NASA’s newest X-ray telescope, the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), has observed MSH 15-52 for about 17 days, the longest it has looked at any single object since it launched in December 2021.

The IXPE data gives astronomers the first map of the magnetic field in the hand. The charged particles producing the X-rays travel along the magnetic field, determining the basic shape of the nebula, like the bones do in a person’s hand.

These new data are revealing interesting aspects of this cosmic hand that researchers did not know before. By combining the data from these two telescopes, astronomers are learning more not only about MSH 15-52, but also other pulsar wind nebulae in general, with more discoveries yet to come.

Credit: Chandra X-ray Observatory

Duration: 3 minutes

Release Date: Oct. 30, 2023

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