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Astrophysics Branch

Marshall Space Flight Center's Astrophysics Branch uses space and ground-based observatories to peer back to the earliest epochs of the universe, unravel its mysteries, and study the most violent explosions in our galaxy and beyond. Our goal is to help discover how the universe works, explore how it began and evolved, and search for life on planets around other stars.

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Cas-A-Chandra Webb Hubble Spitzer-composite
Cas-A-Chandra Webb Hubble Spitzer-composite

Astrophysics Branch

This release features a composite image of a pulsar wind nebula, which strongly resembles a ghostly purple hand with sparkling fingertips. A pulsar is a highly magnetized collapsed star that rotates and creates jets of matter flowing away from its poles. These jets, along with intense winds of particles, form pulsar wind nebulae. Here, the pulsar wind nebula known as MSH 15-52 resembles a hazy purple cloud set against a black, starry backdrop. Both NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) have observed MSH 15-52. Their observations revealed that the shape of this pulsar wind nebula strongly resembles a human hand, including five fingers, a palm and wrist. The bright white spot near the base of the palm is the pulsar itself. The three longest fingertips of the hand-shape point toward our upper right, or 1:00 on a clock face. There, a small, mottled, orange and yellow cloud appears to sparkle or glow like embers. This orange cloud is part of the remains of the supernova explosion that created the pulsar. The backdrop of stars was captured in infrared light.

IXPE: Imaging X-Ray PolarimetryExplorer

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The Helix Nebula is a cloud of gas ejected by a dying star, known as a white dwarf. In the composite image, the cloud of gas strongly resembles a creature’s eye. Here, a hazy blue cloud is surrounded by misty, concentric rings of pale yellow, rose pink, and blood orange. Each ring appears dusted with flecks of gold, particularly the outer edges of the eye-shape. The entire image is speckled with glowing dots in blues, whites, yellows, and purples. At the center of the hazy blue gas cloud, is a bright white dot with a pink outer ring, and a smaller white dot.

Chandra X-Ray Observatory

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This detailed all-sky map was produced by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope using nine years of data collected from 2008 to 2017.

Gamma Ray Astrophysics

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Astrophysics Branch Updates
NASA Telescopes Spot Surprisingly Mature Cluster in Early Universe
6 min read

A new discovery captures the cosmic moment when a galaxy cluster – among the largest structures in the universe – started to assemble only about a billion years after the big bang, one or two billion years earlier than previously…

Article
NASA’s Chandra Releases Deep Cut From Catalog of Cosmic Recordings
5 min read

Like a recording artist who has had a long career, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has a “back catalog” of cosmic recordings that is impossible to replicate. To access these X-ray tracks, or observations, the ultimate compendium has been developed: the Chandra Source Catalog (CSC).…

Article
NASA’s IXPE Measures White Dwarf Star for First Time
3 min read

By Michael Allen  For the first time, scientists have used NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) to study a white dwarf star. Using IXPE’s unique X-ray polarization capability, astronomers examined a star called the intermediate polar EX Hydrae, unlocking the…

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NASA’s Chandra Rings in New Year With Champagne Cluster
4 min read

Celebrate the New Year with the “Champagne Cluster,” a galaxy cluster seen in this new image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and optical telescopes. Astronomers discovered this galaxy cluster Dec. 31, 2020. The date, combined with the bubble-like appearance of…

Article
NASA IXPE’s Longest Observation Solves Black Hole Jets Mystery
4 min read

Written by Michael Allen An international team of astronomers using NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) has identified the origin of X-rays in a supermassive black hole’s jet, answering a question that has been unresolved since the earliest days of…

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