A Pulsar’s Hand
As far as pulsars go, PSR B1509-58
appears young.
Light from the supernova explosion that gave birth to it would
have first reached Earth some 1,700 years ago.
The magnetized, 20 kilometer-diameter
neutron star
spins 7 times per second, a
cosmic dynamo
that powers a wind
of charged particles.
The energetic wind creates the surrounding nebula's
X-ray glow in
this
tantalizing image
from the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Low energy X-rays are in red, medium energies in green,
and high energies in blue.
The pulsar itself is in the bright central region.
Remarkably, the nebula's tantalizing,
complicated structure
resembles a hand.
PSR B1509-58 is about 17,000 light-years away in the
southern constellation
Circinus.
At that distance the Chandra image spans 100 light-years.
