NASA X-ray telescopes reveal the ‘bones’ of a ghostly cosmic hand

In 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen found X-rays and used them to picture the bones in his spouse’s hand, kicking off a revolutionary diagnostic instrument for medication. Now two of NASA’s X-ray space telescopes have mixed their imaging powers to unveil the magnetic discipline “bones” of a exceptional hand-shaped construction in space. Collectively, these telescopes reveal the conduct of a lifeless collapsed star that lives on by means of plumes of particles of energized matter and antimatter.

Round 1,500 years in the past, a giant star in our galaxy ran out of nuclear gasoline to burn. When this occurred, the star collapsed onto itself and fashioned a particularly dense object referred to as a neutron star.

Rotating neutron stars with strong magnetic fields, or pulsars, present laboratories for excessive physics, with circumstances that can not be replicated on Earth. Younger pulsars can create jets of matter and antimatter shifting away from the poles of the pulsar, together with an intense wind, forming a “pulsar wind nebula.”

In 2001, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory first noticed the pulsar PSR B1509-58 and revealed that its pulsar wind nebula (known as MSH 15-52) resembles a human hand. The pulsar is positioned on the base of the “palm” of the nebula. MSH 15-52 is positioned 16,000 light-years from Earth.

Now, NASA’s latest X-ray telescope, the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), has noticed MSH 15-52 for about 17 days, the longest it has checked out any single object because it launched in December 2021.

“The IXPE knowledge offers us the primary map of the magnetic field within the ‘hand,'” mentioned Roger Romani of Stanford College in California, who led the research. “The charged particles producing the X-rays journey alongside the magnetic field, figuring out the fundamental form of the nebula, just like the bones do in an individual’s hand.”

IXPE offers details about the electrical discipline orientation of X-rays, decided by the magnetic discipline of the X-ray supply. That is referred to as X-ray polarization. In giant areas of MSH 15-52 the quantity of polarization is remarkably excessive, reaching the utmost stage anticipated from theoretical work. To attain that power, the magnetic discipline should be very straight and uniform, which means there may be little turbulence in these areas of the pulsar wind nebula.

“We’re all aware of X-rays as a diagnostic medical instrument for people,” mentioned co-author Josephine Wong, additionally of Stanford. “Right here we’re utilizing X-rays another way, however they’re once more revealing data that’s in any other case hidden from us.”

One significantly attention-grabbing characteristic of MSH 15-52 is a vivid X-ray jet directed from the pulsar to the “wrist” on the backside of the picture. The brand new IXPE knowledge reveal that the polarization firstly of the jet is low, doubtless as a result of this can be a turbulent area with complicated, tangled magnetic fields related to the technology of high-energy particles. By the tip of the jet the magnetic field lines seem to straighten and turn into way more uniform, inflicting the polarization to turn into a lot bigger.

These outcomes suggest that particles are given an vitality enhance in complicated turbulent areas close to the pulsar on the base of the palm, and circulation to areas the place the magnetic discipline is uniform alongside the wrist, fingers and thumb.

“We have uncovered the life historical past of tremendous energetic matter and antimatter particles across the pulsar,” mentioned co-author Niccolò Di Lalla, additionally of Stanford. “This teaches us about how pulsars can act as particle accelerators.”

IXPE has additionally detected comparable magnetic fields for the Vela and Crab pulsar wind nebulae, which suggests that they might be surprisingly widespread in these objects.

These outcomes are printed in a new paper in The Astrophysical Journal.