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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’s Chandra Finds Baby Exoplanet is Shrinking
5 min read

A baby planet is shrinking from the size of Jupiter with a thick atmosphere to a small, barren world, according to a new study from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. This transformation is happening as the host star unleashes a barrage…

Image Article
NASA’s IXPE Imager Reveals Mysteries of Rare Pulsar
4 min read

An international team of astronomers has uncovered new evidence to explain how pulsing remnants of exploded stars interact with surrounding matter deep in the cosmos, using observations from NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) and other telescopes.  Scientists based in the…

Article
NASA’s Chandra Shares a New View of Our Galactic Neighbor
6 min read

The Andromeda galaxy, also known as Messier 31 (M31), is the closest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way at a distance of about 2.5 million light-years. Astronomers use Andromeda to understand the structure and evolution of our own spiral, which…

Image Article
NASA’s Chandra Sees Surprisingly Strong Black Hole Jet at Cosmic “Noon”
5 min read

A black hole has blasted out a surprisingly powerful jet in the distant universe, according to a new study from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. This jet exists early enough in the cosmos that it is being illuminated by the leftover…

Image Article
NASA’s IXPE Obtains First X-ray Polarization Measurement of Magnetar Outburst
4 min read

What happens when the universe’s most magnetic object shines with the power of 1,000 Suns in a matter of seconds? Thanks to NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer), a mission in collaboration with ASI (Italian Space Agency), scientists are one…

Article