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Judi Lynn

(160,219 posts)
Tue Feb 23, 2021, 11:21 PM Feb 2021

NASA Observatories Likely Detect Long-Sought 1987A Supernova Core

Feb 23, 2021,09:50pm EST|2 views

Bruce Dorminey



Astronomers now have evidence from two X-ray telescopes (Chandra and NuSTAR) for a key component of a famous supernova remnant. This latest study shows that a "pulsar wind nebula" created by such a neutron star may be present. CHANDRA (X-RAY): NASA/CXC/UNIV. DI PALERMO/E. GRECO; ILLUSTRATION: INAF-OSSERVATORIO ASTRONOMICO DI PALERMO/SALVATORE ORLANDO

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and its NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array) has indirectly detected what it thinks is the remnant stellar core of Supernova 1987A, the first naked-eye supernova discovered in more than 400 years. Located in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy located some 170,000 light years away, Supernova 1987A (or SN 1987A) was first spotted from a lonely Chilean observatory mountaintop on Feb. 23, 1987.

In a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal, an international team of astronomers note that after three decades of searching, they have used x-ray emissions to detect the supernova’s neutron star core. The team also used data from the ground-based Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile to support their claims.

“For 34 years, astronomers have been sifting through the stellar debris of SN 1987A to find the neutron star we expect to be there,” Emanuele Greco, of the University of Palermo in Italy, the study leader said in a statement. “There have been lots of hints that have turned out to be dead ends, but we think our latest results could be different.”

These objects have been dubbed neutron stars, because they are made nearly exclusively of densely packed neutrons, says NASA. Rapidly rotating and highly magnetized neutron stars, called pulsars, produce a lighthouse-like beam of radiation that astronomers detect as pulses when its rotation sweeps the beam across the sky, the space agency notes. However, there is a subset of pulsars, says NASA. that produce winds from their surfaces – sometimes at nearly the speed of light – that create intricate structures of charged particles and magnetic fields known as “pulsar wind nebulae.”

More:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucedorminey/2021/02/23/nasa-observatories-likely-detect-long-sought-1987a-supernova-core/?sh=16f3d1b961a9

Also posted in Science:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/122874407






Please see google images for photos of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile:
https://tinyurl.com/njhn5wuf

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