The image comes from NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), the agency’s newest X-ray telescope. IXPE monitored MSH 15-52, the pulsar wind nebula of pulsar PSR B1509-58, for 17 days, the longest it has ever observed a single object. Located 16,000 lightyears from Earth, MSH 15-52 was first observed in 2001, when it was discovered that it bore the shape of a human hand.
Now thanks to IXPE data, NASA has a much clearer picture of this ghostly 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,” said Roger Romani of Stanford University in California, who led the study to produce the images.
Co-author Niccolò Di Lalla, also of Stanford, added: “We’ve uncovered the life history of super energetic matter and antimatter particles around the pulsar. This teaches us about how pulsars can act as particle accelerators.” Not to mention, it looks very cool and kind of creepy too.
