Most of the time, the images we get back from spacecraft and telescopes are beautiful. Sometimes they’re meh or boring. Occasionally, they are downright creepy. Early in this century, astronomers using the Chandra X-ray Observatory spotted a structure made of hot gas that looks like a creepy hand generated by your favorite special effects company.

In 2009, the ghost hand was described as a 150-light-year spanning cloud of gas illuminated by a rapidly spinning neutron star that could briefly fit on Manhattan Island before its gravity destroyed the planet. Named B1509, this pulsar is only 1,700 years old and would have formed in a supernova explosion while the Mayan civilization was at its peak and the Jin Dynasty ruled China.

In addition to lighting a hand-shaped structure, the supernova also generated a shockwave that is expanding through space fast enough that we can see it changing from year to year. In comparing images from 2004 and 2008 with data from 2017 and 2018, it is possible to see the ring of light that the hand appears to be touching changing ever so slowly. That ring is where the shockwave is hitting a wall of otherwise invisible material and heating it up to be visible in x-rays. As the shock expands and moves through the wall, we see a larger ring. This is comparable to how a flashlight beam or headlights appear to be illuminating larger cones as they pass through a cloud of fog or dust.

The science is super cool… or super hot if you want to be literal. The image is one that won’t be going on my wall.

More Information

Chandra X-ray Observatory press release

“Fast Blast Wave and Ejecta in the Young Core-Collapse Supernova Remnant MSH 15-52/RCW 89,” Kazimierz J. Borkowski, Stephen P. Reynolds, and William Miltich, to be published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters (preprint on arxiv.org)