Pulsar Wind Nebulae tagged posts

Montage showing very high energy gamma ray sources in the Milky Way, seen above the HESS telescopes in Namibia. Credit: © F. Acero, / Map of gamma ray sources / © HESS collaboration

The HESS international collaboration, to which CNRS and CEA contribute, has published the results of 15 years of gamma ray observations of the Milky Way. Its telescopes installed in Namibia have studied populations of pulsar wind nebulae and supernova remnants, as well as microquasars, never before detected in gamma rays. These studies are supplemented by precise measurements such as those of the diffuse emission at the center of our Galaxy. The entire set of data will henceforth serve as a reference for the international scientific community...

The Crab Nebula seen in the optical by the Hubble Space Telescope. The Crab is an example of a pulsar wind nebula. Astronomers have modeled the detailed shape of another pulsar wind nebula to conclude, among other things, that the pulsar’s spin axis is pointed almost directly towards us. NASA/ Hubble Space Telescope

Neutron stars are the detritus of supernova explosions, with masses between 1 and several suns and diameters only tens of kilometers across. A pulsar is a spinning neutron star with a strong magnetic field; charged particles in the field radiate in a lighthouse-like beam that can sweep past the Earth with extreme regularity every few seconds or less...