MSH 11-62 Supernova Remnant: NASA Image of the Day

By Last Updated: November 21, 2014Views: 2502

KC-islands-thumbAnother beautiful image courtesy of the folks at NASA. Also it reminds me of a rather underrated King Crimson album: Islands

A long observation with Chandra of the supernova remnant MSH 11-62 reveals an irregular shell of hot gas, shown in red, surrounding an extended nebula of high energy X-rays, shown in blue. Even though scientists have yet to detect any pulsations from the central object within MSH 11-62, the structure around it has many of the same characteristics as other pulsar wind nebulas. The reverse shock and other, secondary shocks within MSH 11-62 appear to have begun to crush the pulsar wind nebula, possibly contributing to its elongated shape. (Note: the orientation of this image has been rotated by 24 degrees so that north is pointed to the upper left.)

Image credit:  NASA/CXC/SAO/P. Slane et al.

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