Unmasking a pulsar 🎭
The explosion of a giant star left behind a pulsar. Winds travel near the speed of light into a chaotic collision as charged particles and magnetic fields crash into surrounding gas, creating this pulsar wind nebula. go.nasa.gov/3ZuIRB2
ALT Vela Pulsar Wind Nebula is a bright white dot in a purple/blue hazy circle. The space surrounding it is black with several orange colored stars in the background.
This image shows the Vela pulsar wind nebula. Light blue represents X-ray polarization data from NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer. Pink and purple colors correspond to data from NASA’s Chandra X-Ray observatory, which has observed Vela several times previously. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope contributed the stars in the background.
Credits: X-ray: (IXPE) NASA/MSFC/Fei Xie & (Chandra) NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/STScI Hubble/Chandra processing by Judy Schmidt; Hubble/Chandra/IXPE processing & compositing by NASA/CXC/SAO/Kimberly Arcand & Nancy Wolk