NASA observatory captures a giant “hand” in space

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Laboratory equipment has captured an unusual image of space, in which a giant “hand” can be seen pressing its weak fingers against a glowing cloud.

According to the “Astrophysical Journal Letters” scientific website, a member of Chandra’s team confirmed that the “hand” arose due to the death of a massive star in a supernova explosion, leaving behind a super-dense, rotating stellar body known as a pulsar.

The pulsar blew a bubble of energetic particles around itself. Together with the debris from the supernova explosion, it created a hand-like structure spanning 150 light-years. At the same time, the glowing feature that reaches it is a massive gas cloud known as “RCW 89”. .
The glowing hand is located about 17,000 light-years from Earth and astronomers believe the light from its explosion reached us about 1,700 years ago, making MSH 15-52 one of the smallest known supernova remnants in our Milky Way.

The research, which was published in Astrophysical Journal Letters in June 2020, found that the supernova explosion wave, located at the fingertips, moves at about 9 million miles per hour (14.5 million kilometers per hour) and that material closest to the palm is moving faster. equal. Faster at over 11 million mph (17.7 km/h).

Chandra has photographed the hand before, and it was the subject of the April 2009 release of the photo, for example. But a recent study delves deeper into the dynamics of the hand, using Chandra photos from 2004, 2008, 2017, and 2018.