A composite image of the Crab Nebula contains X-ray (blue and white), optical data (purple), and infrared data (pink).
X-ray (IXPE: NASA), (Chandra: NASA/CXC/SAO) Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/K. Alkan & L. Flatterle
The Crab Nebula’s magnetic field has been mapped in unprecedented detail. This hot mass of gas and dust is one of the most studied space objects, but this new map shows it’s more complex than expected.
Niccolo Bucciantini At the Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory in Italy, his colleagues observed the Crab Nebula using the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), a space telescope designed to probe the polarization of cosmic X-rays. . Polarization, a measure of the direction in which a light wave oscillates, is partially governed by the object’s magnetic field, so measuring it allowed researchers to track the turbulent field in the Crab Nebula. .
And it’s cluttered with huge patches that aren’t symmetrical across the nebula. “This clearly shows that even the more complex models developed in the past using advanced numerical techniques have not fully captured the complexity of this object.” statement.
The Crab Nebula is a supernova remnant, a cloud of dust and gas left over from a stellar explosion in the year 1054. The explosion also left behind a pulsar, a rotating neutron star with jets of radiation erupting from its poles. center of the nebula.
The region around the pulsar, called the Pulsar Wind Nebula, is very chaotic due to the pulsar’s strong magnetic field, extreme spin, and the high-energy radiation it emits. Due to the general havoc of pulsar wind nebulae, they are poorly understood, but the IXPE images have helped shed light on the Kani pulsar’s surroundings.
The researchers found pockets of ‘microturbulence’ that were completely uncorrelated with changes in the nebula’s brightness, along with changes in the polarization structure over time as impacts from the pulsar accelerated particles to near the speed of light. bottom. The emission from the pulsar itself also appeared to be almost completely unpolarized, which was unexpected.
Researchers knew the Crab Nebula was complex, but it appears to be even more complex than expected, perhaps due to patches of turbulence that are hard to explain and even harder to simulate. New models of the nebula must take these X-ray measurements into account. Also, new observations will be needed to explain the confusion at the center of the nebula.
topic:
- astronomy/
- electromagnetic
