To celebrate Halloween this year, NASA released a new image of a stellar nebula taken by the X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) space observatory. The image is part of a study in which the space observatory broke its own record for focusing on an object in space for 17 days after it became operational in December 2021. This image resembles a human hand and shows the Wind Nebula, 16,000 light-years away. Thousands of light-years from Earth, pulsar PSR B1509-58 marks the remains of a dead supergiant star and is part of a star-forming region called a nebula.

Supergiants are among the largest stars in the known universe. Many of these stars are called main sequence stars, the most famous example being the Sun. Main sequence stars exist due to nuclear fusion, which brings atoms together, creating a chain reaction and producing energy and light.

Like everything else, these stars are subject to conservation of matter and need hydrogen to sustain the fusion reaction. When this hydrogen runs out, main sequence stars with masses much greater than the mass of the Sun explode into neutron stars.

The byproducts of this explosion create some of the most spectacular images ever, and NASA shared one of them today. It shows the MS 15-52 pulsar wind nebula, which is part of the PSR B1509-58 nebula, first discovered by the Chandra X-ray Observatory in 2001.

Dr. According to Roger Romani, the material emitted by PSR B1509-58 moves along a magnetic field that gives the pulsar the shape of a human hand. Dr. Romani is a professor at Stanford University and his team led the PSR B1509-58 study, in which IXPE observed the Wind Nebula pulsar MSH 15-52 for 17 days.

The colorful composition of the wind nebula is due to the polarization of X-ray radiation emitted by the magnetic field of a neutron star. A magnetic field aligns high-energy particles along its direction, and if these particles are energized, they can exhibit better magnetic properties.

The 17-day study allowed scientists to confirm that particles produced by the pulsar at the base of the wind nebula are weakly polarized but high in energy. As they move towards the outer regions of the wind nebula, the fingers, they align with the polarized magnetic field.

In terms of practical applications, the findings show scientists how it is possible for particles to accelerate through space and the important role pulsars can play in this process. There are thousands of particle accelerators in the world, although not as large as MSH 15-52. They are used for a variety of purposes, including sterilization and research.