Video Credits—
Numerical relativity simulation: S.V. Chaurasia (Stockholm University) / T. Dietrich (Potsdam University and Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics)
Scientific visualization: T. Dietrich (Potsdam University and Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics) / N. Fischer, S. Ossokine, H. Pfeiffer (Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics)
Radiation from the pulsar PSR B1509-58, a rapidly spinning neutron star, causes nearby gas to glow with X-rays (gold, from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory) and illuminates the rest of the nebula, here seen in infrared (blue and red, from WISE).
Image Credit: NASA
The Jellyfish Nebula (aka IC 443,) is the remnant of a supernova about 5,000 light years from Earth. Chandra X-ray Telescope observations show that the explosion that created the Jellyfish Nebula may have also formed a rapidly spinning neutron star, or pulsar.
When a massive star runs out of thermonuclear fuel, it implodes and forms a dense stellar core called a neutron star. The outer layers of the star collapse into the neutron star then bounce outward in a supernova explosion. A spinning neutron star that produces a beam of radiation is called a pulsar. As the radiation sweeps around like light from a lighthouse, it can be detected as pulses of radio waves and other types of radiation.
Click the image to embiggen it.
Image Credit: NASA
This Hubble image peers deep into the core of the Crab Nebula, revealing its beating heart. At its center are the remnants of a supernova which sends out clock-like pulses of radiation and waves of charged particles. The neutron star at the very center of the Crab Nebula has about the same mass as the Sun, but it’s compressed into an incredibly dense sphere that is only a few miles across. Spinning 30 times a second, the neutron star ticks along, shooting out detectable beams of energy.
Image Credit: NASA / ESA
This is a simulation of a black hole eating a neutron star. The blue pattern represents the gravitational waves emitted by the event.
Video Credits—
Numerical relativity simulation: S.V. Chaurasia (Stockholm University), T. Dietrich (Potsdam University and Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics)
Scientific visualization: T. Dietrich (Potsdam University and Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics), N. Fischer, S. Ossokine, H. Pfeiffer (Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics)
Video Credit: NASA
This Hubble image peers deep into the core of the Crab Nebula, revealing its beating heart. At its center are the remnants of a supernova which sends out clock-like pulses of radiation and waves of charged particles. The neutron star at the very center of the Crab Nebula has about the same mass as the Sun, but it’s compressed into an incredibly dense sphere that is only a few miles across. Spinning 30 times a second, the neutron star ticks along, shooting out detectable beams of energy.
Image Credit: NASA / ESA
Video Credit: NASA
Video Credit: ESO
Here’s NASA’s description of this video: Doomed neutron stars whirl toward their demise in this animation. Gravitational waves (pale arcs) bleed away orbital energy, causing the stars to move closer together and merge. As the stars collide, some of the debris blasts away in particle jets moving at nearly the speed of light, producing a brief burst of gamma rays (magenta). In addition to the ultra-fast jets powering the gamma-rays, the merger also generates slower moving debris. An outflow driven by accretion onto the merger remnant emits rapidly fading ultraviolet light (violet). A dense cloud of hot debris stripped from the neutron stars just before the collision produces visible and infrared light (blue-white through red). The UV, optical and near-infrared glow is collectively referred to as a kilonova. Later, once the remnants of the jet directed toward us had expanded into our line of sight, X-rays (blue) were detected. This animation represents phenomena observed up to nine days after GW170817.
Video Credit: NASA
Radiation from the pulsar PSR B1509-58, a rapidly spinning neutron star, causes nearby gas to glow with X-rays (gold, from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory) and illuminates the rest of the nebula, here seen in infrared (blue and red, from WISE).
Image Credit: NASA
This video zooms from a broad view of the spectacular central regions of the Milky Way into the small constellation of Corona Australis. The very faint neutron star RX J1856.5-3754 is among clouds of glowing gas and dark regions of dust.
Video Credit: ESO
This series of images of the Crab Nebula taken by the Hubble Space Telescope reveal wave-like structures like ripples in a pond expanding outward from the “heart” of an exploded star. The beating heart of the nebula is the crushed core of the exploded star, a supernova. The remnant neutron star has about the same mass as the sun but is squeezed into an ultra-dense sphere that is only a few miles across. It’s a tremendous dynamo, spinning 30 times a second. The rapidly spinning neutron star is visible in the image as the bright object just below the center of the image. The bright object to the left of the neutron star is a foreground or background star.
Image Credits: NASA and ESA
Acknowledgment: J. Hester (Arizona State University)
This Hubble image peers deep into the core of the Crab Nebula, revealing its beating heart. At its center are the remnants of a supernova which sends out clock-like pulses of radiation and waves of charged particles. The neutron star at the very center of the Crab Nebula has about the same mass as the Sun, but it’s compressed into an incredibly dense sphere that is only a few miles across. Spinning 30 times a second, the neutron star ticks along, shooting out detectable beams of energy.
Image Credit: NASA / ESA
The youngest member of an important class of objects has been found using data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Australia Compact Telescope Array. A composite image shows the X-rays in blue and radio emission in purple, which have been overlaid on an optical field of view from the Digitized Sky Survey. This discovery allows scientists to study a critical phase after a supernova and the birth of a neutron star.
Image Credit: NASA
Video Credit: NASA