Chandra hands us unusual image of pulsar B1509

William Atkins
Tuesday, 07 April 2009 19:15

Science - Space

The colors perceived in this image come from the X-rays that are collected by the Chandra telescope, with the red colors coming from the lowest energy level of x-rays, the greens from the medium ones, and the blue colors from the highest energetic x-rays.

The National Geographic News article “Pulsar Creates Cosmic ‘Hand’” states, “Its finger-like pillars appear to be transferring energy to a nearby gas cloud, which glows orange and red in x-rays."

The Harvard-Smithsonian article adds, "In the innermost regions, a faint circle surrounds the pulsar, and marks the spot where the wind is rapidly decelerated by the slowly expanding nebula. In this way, B1509 shares some striking similarities to the famous Crab Nebula."

"However B1509's nebula is 15 times wider than the Crab's diameter of 10 light years."

And, "Finger-like structures extend to the north, apparently energizing knots of material in a neighboring gas cloud known as RCW 89. 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 RCW 89."

The very fast rotation of B1509 and its extremely strong magnetic field makes it one of the most powerful producers of electromagnetic radiation in the Milky Way galaxy. Let's give it a hand! (pun intended!)