NASA has unveiled a breathtaking new image showing what appears to be a massive “cosmic hand” stretching across 150 light-years of space, created by one of the galaxy’s most powerful electromagnetic generators.
The striking composite combines X-ray data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory with fresh radio observations from Australia’s telescope array, giving scientists their most detailed view yet of pulsar B1509-58 and the spectacular nebula it powers.
The “cosmic hand” spans 150 light-years — nearly 900 trillion miles — across space while at the heart of the display lies a neutron star just 12 miles across, spinning nearly seven times per second.
A pulsar is a type of neutron star, which is the dense, collapsed core left behind after a massive star explodes in a supernova. A nebula is a giant cloud of gas and dust in space.
Despite its small size, this collapsed stellar core unleashes staggering amounts of energy.
Some nebulae are the birthplaces of new stars, formed from collapsing clouds of hydrogen.
Others, like the one around pulsar B1509-58 (nicknamed the “cosmic hand”), are remnants of exploded stars — debris blasted into space by a supernova.
Its magnetic field is estimated at 15 trillion times stronger than Earth’s — enough to drive a torrent of charged particles outward and shape them into a hand-like structure known as MSH 15-52.
This pulsar was born when its parent star exhausted its nuclear fuel, causing it to collapse in on itself before exploding outward as a supernova, scattering debris into space.
The intense spin and magnetism of the leftover core turned it into one of the galaxy’s most powerful particle generators.
NASA first captured the “cosmic hand” in 2009, but the new image reveals previously unseen details.
The radio data highlight intricate filaments tracing the nebula’s magnetic field, created as the pulsar’s wind collides with the expanding debris from the original explosion.
Intriguingly, the new study shows clear differences between X-ray and radio emissions.
Features such as a jet near the pulsar and the inner regions of three “fingers” glow brightly in X-rays but vanish in radio light.
Researchers say this suggests highly energetic particles are escaping from a shock wave close to the pulsar and racing along magnetic field lines to form the glowing structures.
The observations also shed light on RCW 89, the surrounding supernova remnant. Unlike typical remnants, RCW 89 appears patchy, with clumps of X-ray, radio, and optical emissions interwoven.
“This object continues to surprise us,” lead author Shumeng Zhang of the University of Hong Kong wrote in the study, published in The Astrophysical Journal.
“By combining different types of light, we’re uncovering new details about how pulsars and supernova remnants interact.”
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