NASA’s IXPE Imager Reveals Mysteries of Rare Pulsar

This artist’s concept depicts PSR J1023+0038, a pulsar in a binary system with a low-mass companion star which is not pictured. The pulsar appears as a glowing light blue dot at the center of a black background. Thin blue lines showing the pulsar’s magnetic field curve outward from it in graceful arcs, forming shapes that look like a drawn bow or butterfly wings. Circling this blue structure horizontally is the fiery orange-red ring of material swirling around the pulsar in an accretion disk. This ring glows brightly at spots on its left and right inner edges where it interacts with the pulsar wind, which flows along the magnetic field.

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 U.S., Italy, and Spain, set their sights on a mysterious cosmic duo called PSR J1023+0038, … Continue reading NASA’s IXPE Imager Reveals Mysteries of Rare Pulsar