supernova remnant tagged posts

Exquisite, never-before-seen details help unravel the supernova remnant’s puzzling history. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has gazed at the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant located 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. Since the recording of this energetic event in 1054 CE by 11th-century astronomers, the Crab Nebula has continued to draw attention and additional study as scientists seek to understand the conditions, behavior, and after-effects of supernovae through thorough study of the Crab, a relatively nearby example.

Using Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), a team led by Tea Temim at Princeton University is searching for answers about the Crab Nebula’s origins.

“Webb’s sensitivity and spatial resolution allow us to accu...

Astronomers have succeeded for the first time in quantifying the proton and electron components of cosmic rays in a supernova remnant. At least 70% of the very-high-energy gamma rays emitted from cosmic rays are due to relativistic protons, according to the novel imaging analysis of radio, X-ray, and gamma-ray radiation. The acceleration site of protons, the main components of cosmic rays, has been a 100-year mystery in modern astrophysics, this is the first time that the amount of cosmic rays being produced in a supernova remnant has been quantitatively shown and is an epoch-making step in the elucidation of the origin of cosmic rays.

The origin of cosmic rays, the particles with the highest energy in the universe, has been a great mystery since their discovery in 1912...

Fermi-LAT sky map with the celestial neighborhood of the newly discovered pulsar PSR J1906+0722 featuring several other gamma-ray pulsars (not labeled). The color scale shows the gamma-ray intensity. The dashed square at the centre encloses the position of the pulsar and the part of the sky shown in more detail in the figure below. Credit: Knispel/AEI/NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-08-scientists-elusive-gamma-ray-pulsar.html#jCp

Gamma-ray pulsars are remnants of explosions that end the lives of massive stars. They are highly-magnetized and rapidly rotating compact neutron stars. Like a cosmic lighthouse they emit gamma-ray photons in a characteristic pattern that repeats with every rotation...