A “giant ghostly hand” reaching out into the vastness of space is what scientists observed following a supernova explosion.
“Giant ghostly hand” may sound like science fiction, but this image was captured by the Chandra X-ray Observatory of NASA.
The image of the ghostly hand reaching out into the vastness of space.
Members of the Chandra team stated that this “ghostly hand” was formed by the death of a massive star in a supernova explosion. The explosion left behind a rapidly spinning, ultra-dense stellar remnant known as a pulsar.
This pulsar has created a bubble of energetic particles around itself, combined with debris from the supernova explosion, forming a structure resembling a hand that stretches 150 light-years.
Meanwhile, the glowing cloud that the fingers of the “ghostly hand” reach towards is a massive gas cloud known as RCW 89.
The remnants of the supernova at the center of the hand, called MSH 15-52, is located about 17,000 light-years from Earth. Astronomers believe that the light from the supernova explosion reached Earth about 1,700 years ago, making MSH 15-52 one of the youngest known supernova remnants in our Milky Way galaxy. At that time, China was experiencing the “Rebellion of the Eight Kings” during the Jin Dynasty – in the year 300 AD, the first year of the Yongkang era of the Western Jin Dynasty. The “Book of Jin” records that “a ghostly star appeared in the south.” If this so-called “ghost star” was not a comet, it is very likely that it was the neutron star designated MSH 15-52 that flared up at the time of the supernova explosion.
This neutron star is 17,000 light-years away from our Earth, and its light has been traveling to Earth for 1,700 years, meaning approximately 18,700 years have passed since the time of the neutron star’s supernova explosion. However, for stars in the universe, this time span is not considered long, so it is still regarded as a young supernova in the Milky Way.
The Chandra X-ray Observatory has detected that this neutron star is still spinning rapidly and continuously emitting electromagnetic pulses outward. Therefore, it is also classified as a pulsar. The nebula where it is located was first discovered by Chandra in April 2009. However, the latest images show that the shockwave from the supernova at the “tip of its fingers” is moving at a speed of about 14.5 million km/h, while the material near the palm is moving even faster, exceeding 17.7 million km/h, nearly 5,000 km per second. It can also be said that this “ghostly palm” is still reaching outward at a speed of 5,000 km per second.
Chandra has been observing the universe in X-ray light for over two decades. The telescope was launched into Earth orbit aboard the Columbia Space Shuttle in July 1999.
Chandra is one of four “Great Observatories” of NASA, launched between 1990 and 2003. The other telescopes include the Hubble Space Telescope, which is still operational today (although it is currently dealing with a computer issue); the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, launched in 1991 and concluded its mission in 2000; and the Spitzer Space Telescope, optimized for infrared observations, which was launched in 2003 and ceased operations last year.
