X-Ray Pulsar SXP 1062

Massive stars end their lives with a bang: exploding as spectacular supernovas, they release huge amounts of mass and energy into space. These explosions sweep up any surrounding material, creating bubble remnants that expand into interstellar space. At the heart of bubbles like these are small, dense neutron stars or black holes, the remains of what once shone brightly as a star.

Since supernova-carved bubbles shine for only a few tens of thousands of years before dissolving, it is rare to come across neutron stars or black holes that are still enclosed within their expanding shell. This image captures such an unusual scene, featuring both a strongly magnetized, rotating neutron star – known as a pulsar – and its cosmic cloak, the remains of the explosion that generated it.

This pulsar, named SXP 1062, lies in the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, one of the satellite galaxies of our Milky Way galaxy. It is an object known as an X-ray pulsar: it hungrily gobbles up material from a nearby companion star and burps off X-rays as it does so. In the future, this scene may become even more dramatic, as SXP 1062 has a massive companion star that has not yet exploded as a supernova.

Most pulsars whirl around incredibly quickly, spinning many times per second. However, by exploring the expanding bubble around this pulsar and estimating its age, astronomers have noticed something intriguing: SXP 1062 seems to be rotating far too slowly for its age. It is actually one of the slowest pulsars known.

While the cause of this weird sluggishness is still a mystery, one explanation may be that the pulsar has an unusually strong magnetic field, which would slow the rotation.

The diffuse blue glow at the center of the bubble in this image represents X-ray emission from both the pulsar and the hot gas that fills the expanding bubble. The other fuzzy blue objects visible in the background are extragalactic X-ray sources.

This image combines X-ray data from ESA’s XMM-Newton (shown in blue) with optical observations from the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. The optical data were obtained using two special filters that reveal the glow of oxygen (shown in green) and hydrogen (shown in red). The size of the image is equivalent to a distance of 457 light-years on a side.

This image was first published on ESA’s Science and Technology website in 2011. It is based on data from the paper “Discovery of a Be/X-ray pulsar binary and associated supernova remnant in the Wing of the Small Magellanic Cloud” by V. Hénault-Brunet, et al. 2012.

Image credit: ESA/XMM-Newton/ L. Oskinova/M. Guerrero; CTIO/R. Gruendl/Y.H. Chu

Note: The above image was first published on this blog in December 2011; however, the above text is different and provides additional information.

X-Ray Pulsar SXP 1062 Embedded in a Supernova Remnant

This image is a composite view of the newly discovered X-ray pulsar SXP 1062 still embedded in the remnant of the supernova that created it. SXP 1062 accretes mass from its stellar companion, a massive, hot, blue 'Be' star, the two objects forming a Be/X-ray binary.

The X-ray emission from this object has been detected using data from ESA's XMM-Newton as well as NASA's Chandra space-based observatories. A later study of optical images of the source and its surroundings revealed the bubble-shaped signature of the supernova remnant around the binary system. Since supernova remnants shine only for a few tens of thousands of years before dispersing into the interstellar medium, not many pulsars have been detected while still enclosed in their expanding shell. This is the first clear example of such a pair in the SMC.

This false-color image combines the X-ray view, based on data from XMM-Newton (corresponding to the blue channel), with optical data from NOAO's Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), obtained using two special filters that reveal the glow of oxygen (corresponding to the green channel) and hydrogen (corresponding to the red channel).

The bubble-shaped feature is the supernova remnant that encloses the pulsar. The diffuse glow at the center represents X-ray emission from both the pulsar and the hot gas that fills the remnant of the supernova. Other point-like X-ray sources are background, extragalactic objects.

Characterized by a surprisingly slow rotation period of 1062 seconds, this pulsar is located in the Wing of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), a peripheral region of this satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. The Wing is part of the tidal feature that connects the SMC to its neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Photo credit: ESA/XMM-Newton/L. Oskinova, University of Potsdam, Germany/M. Guerrero, Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia, Spain (X-ray); Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory/R. Gruendl & Y. H. Chu, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA (optical)

Note: For more information, see Strangely Slow Pulsar Discovered Nestled in Young Supernova Remnant.

The Carina Nebula

Observations made with the APEX telescope in sub-millimeter-wavelength light at a wavelength of 870 µm reveal the cold dusty clouds from which stars form in the Carina Nebula. This site of violent star formation, which plays host to some of the highest-mass stars in our galaxy, is an ideal arena in which to study the interactions between these young stars and their parent molecular clouds.

The APEX observations, made with its LABOCA camera, are shown here in orange tones, combined with a visible light image from the Curtis Schmidt telescope at the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory. The result is a dramatic, wide-field picture that provides a spectacular view of Carina’s star formation sites. The nebula contains stars equivalent to over 25,000 Suns, and the total mass of gas and dust clouds is that of about 140,000 Suns.

Photo credit: ESO/APEX/T. Preibisch et al. (Submillimetre); N. Smith, University of Minnesota/NOAO/AURA/NSF (Optical)

Note: For more information, see The Cool Clouds of Carina. See also Tarantula Nebula (30 Doradus): 30 Doradus and The Growing Tarantula Within .