Image of the Day Gallery
Image of the Day Gallery
A Young Pulsar Shows Its Hand
A
small, dense object only 12 miles in diameter is responsible for this
beautiful X-ray nebula that spans 150 light years. At the center of this
image made by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is a very young and
powerful pulsar, known as PSR B1509-58, or B1509 for short. The pulsar
is a rapidly spinning neutron star which is spewing energy out into the
space around it to create complex and intriguing structures, including
one that resembles a large cosmic hand.
In this image, the
lowest energy X-rays that Chandra detects are red, the medium range is
green, and the most energetic ones are colored blue. Astronomers think
that B1509 is about 1,700 years old and it is located about 17,000 light
years away.
Neutron stars are created when massive stars run
out of fuel and collapse. 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.
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 seen by Chandra.
Image Credits: NASA/CXC/CfA/P. Slane et al.