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NASA’s x-ray telescope finds bizarre features in a cosmic hand

Date:
August 31, 2025
Source:
Stockholm University
Summary:
Astronomers have taken a fresh look at the famous “Hand of God” pulsar, combining X-ray data from NASA’s Chandra Observatory with new radio observations from the Australia Telescope Compact Array. At the center is pulsar B1509-58, a rapidly spinning neutron star only about 12 miles wide that powers a nebula stretching 150 light-years across. The strange hand-shaped structure continues to surprise researchers, revealing puzzling filaments, patchy remnants, and boundaries that defy expectations.
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In 2009, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory released a captivating image: a pulsar and its surrounding nebula that is shaped like a hand.

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  • X-rays from Chandra have been combined with radio data obtained by the Australian Telescope Compact Array to reveal new structures.
  • At the center of this image is a pulsar, a rapidly spinning neutron star, which is responsible for creating the nebula.
  • This system was created when a massive star collapsed and exploded after it burned through its sustainable nuclear fuel.
  • In 2009, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory released a captivating image: a pulsar and its surrounding nebula that is shaped like a hand.

    Since then, astronomers have used Chandra and other telescopes to continue to observe this object. Now, new radio data from the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA), has been combined with Chandra's X-ray data to provide a fresh view of this exploded star and its environment, to help understand its peculiar properties and shape.

    At the center of this new image lies the pulsar B1509-58, a rapidly spinning neutron star that is only about 12 miles in diameter. This tiny object is responsible for producing an intricate nebula (called MSH 15-52) that spans over 150 light-years, or about 900 trillion miles. The nebula, which is produced by energetic particles, resembles a human hand with a palm and extended fingers pointing to the upper right in X-rays.

    The collapse of a massive star created the pulsar when much of the star crashed inward once it burned through its sustainable nuclear fuel. An ensuing explosion sent the star's outer layers outward into space as a supernova.

    The pulsar spins around almost seven times every second and has a strong magnetic field, about 15 trillion times stronger than the Earth's. The rapid rotation and strong magnetic field make B1509-58 one of the most powerful electromagnetic generators in the Galaxy, enabling it to drive an energetic wind of electrons and other particles away from the pulsar, creating the nebula.

    In this new composite image, the ATCA radio data (represented in red) has been combined with X-rays from Chandra (shown in blue, orange and yellow), along with an optical image of hydrogen gas (gold). The areas of overlap between the X-ray and radio data in MSH 15-52 show as purple. The optical image shows stars in the field of view along with parts of the supernova's debris, the supernova remnant RCW 89.

    Radio data from ATCA now reveals complex filaments that are aligned with the directions of the nebula's magnetic field, shown by the short, straight, white lines in a supplementary image. These filaments could result from the collision of the pulsar's particle wind with the supernova's debris.

    By comparing the radio and X-ray data, researchers identified key differences between the sources of the two types of light. In particular, some prominent X-ray features, including the jet towards the bottom of the image and the inner parts of the three "fingers" towards the top, are not detected in radio waves. This suggests that highly energetic particles are leaking out from a shock wave -- similar to a supersonic plane's sonic boom -- near the pulsar and moving along magnetic field lines to create the fingers.

    The radio data also shows that RCW 89's structure is different from typical young supernova remnants. Much of the radio emission is patchy and closely matches clumps of X-ray and optical emission. It also extends well beyond the X-ray emission. All of these characteristics support the idea that RCW 89 is colliding with a dense cloud of nearby hydrogen gas.

    However, the researchers do not fully understand all that the data is showing them. One area that is perplexing is the sharp boundary of X-ray emission in the upper right of the image that seems to be the blast wave from the supernova -- see the labeled feature. Supernova blast waves are usually bright in radio waves for young supernova remnants like RCW 89, so it is surprising to researchers that there is no radio signal at the X-ray boundary.

    MSH 15-52 and RCW 89 show many unique features not found in other young sources. There are, however, still many open questions regarding the formation and evolution of these structures. Further work is needed to provide better understanding of the complex interplay between the pulsar wind and the supernova debris.

    A paper describing this work, led by Shumeng Zhang of the University of Hong Kong, with co-authors Stephen C.Y. Ng of the University of Hong Kong and Niccolo' Bucciantini of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, has been published in The Astrophysical Journal.

    NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.


    Story Source:

    Materials provided by Stockholm University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


    Journal Reference:

    1. S. Zhang, C.-Y. Ng, N. Bucciantini. High-resolution Radio Study of Pulsar Wind Nebula MSH 15–52 and Supernova Remnant RCW 89. The Astrophysical Journal, 2025; 989 (2): 221 DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/adf333

    Cite This Page:

    Stockholm University. "NASA’s x-ray telescope finds bizarre features in a cosmic hand." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 31 August 2025. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/08/250831112518.htm>.
    Stockholm University. (2025, August 31). NASA’s x-ray telescope finds bizarre features in a cosmic hand. ScienceDaily. Retrieved September 1, 2025 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/08/250831112518.htm
    Stockholm University. "NASA’s x-ray telescope finds bizarre features in a cosmic hand." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/08/250831112518.htm (accessed September 1, 2025).

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