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Wednesday April 8, 2009
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In a new image from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, high-energy X-rays emanating from the nebula
around a known pulsar, when colored blue, unveil a structure that resembles a "hand reaching for some eternal red cosmic light," according to Space.com.
Sometime in the distant past, pulsar PSR B1509-58 was a star that ran out of energy and collapsed into a sphere just 12 miles in diameter. Today, the star now spins at the high rate of seven times per second. In the process, it spits out energy into space that sometimes falls into a pattern, such as the one shown above.
The report said that the pulsar in question is about 150 light years across and 17,000 light years away. That means we're now seeing it as it actually looked 17,000 years ago, because that's how long it took the light to reach us Earthlings.
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April 8, 2009 3:45 PM
Heh heh, Comsic
April 8, 2009 5:25 PM
Thanks, devin; we fixed.
April 9, 2009 1:27 PM
That wasn't me. That must have been that *other* Jamie Lendino that writes for Gearlog.