Fascinating! NASA captures mesmerizing Supernova remains, leaves netizens in awe | Tech News

Fascinating! NASA captures mesmerizing Supernova remains, leaves netizens in awe

A mesmerizing image of Supernova remains was shared by NASA. Have a look here.

By: HT TECH
| Updated on: Oct 22 2022, 23:50 IST
Sickening! From light to darkness, DEATH of a star is the birth of a Black Hole!
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1/5 What is a Black Hole? According to NASA, a black hole is an astronomical object with a gravitational pull so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape it. A black hole’s “surface,” called its event horizon, defines the boundary where the velocity needed to escape exceeds the speed of light, which is the speed limit of the cosmos. Matter and radiation fall in, but they can’t get out. (NASA)
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2/5 Classes of black holes: Two main classes of black holes have been extensively observed. Stellar-mass black holes with three to dozens of times the Sun’s mass are spread throughout our Milky Way galaxy, while supermassive monsters weighing 100,000 to billions of solar masses are found in the centers of most big galaxies, ours included. (AP)
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3/5 How are black holes birthed? A stellar-mass black hole formation happens when a star with more than 20 solar masses exhausts the nuclear fuel in its core and collapses under its own weight. The collapse triggers a supernova explosion that blows off the star’s outer layers. But if the crushed core contains more than about three times the Sun’s mass, no known force can stop its collapse and the birth of of a black hole. The origin of supermassive black holes is poorly understood, but we know they exist from the very earliest days of a galaxy’s lifetime. Once born, black holes can grow by accreting matter that falls into them, including gas stripped from neighboring stars and even other black holes. (NASA)
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4/5 First image of black hole: In 2019, astronomers using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) — an international collaboration that networked eight ground-based radio telescopes into a single Earth-size dish — captured an image of a black hole for the first time. It appears as a dark circle silhouetted by an orbiting disk of hot, glowing matter. The supermassive black hole is located at the heart of a galaxy called M87, located about 55 million light-years away, and weighs more than 6 billion solar masses. Its event horizon extends so far it could encompass much of our solar system out to well beyond the planets. (Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration)
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5/5 Studying black holes: Astronomers have been studying black holes through the various forms of light they emit for decades. Although light can’t escape a black hole’s event horizon, the enormous tidal forces in its vicinity cause nearby matter to heat up to millions of degrees and emit radio waves and X-rays. Some of the material orbiting even closer to the event horizon may be hurled out, forming jets of particles moving near the speed of light that emit radio, X-rays and gamma rays. Jets from supermassive black holes can extend hundreds of thousands of light-years into space. NASA’s Hubble, Chandra, Swift, NuSTAR, and NICER space telescopes, as well as other missions, continue to take the measure of black holes and their environments. (NASA)
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NASA shares the photo of of a Supernova remains. (NASA)

NASA has left netizens stunned with a mesmerizing new image of the remains of a Supernova. NASA said, "Our Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory telescope and several other X-ray telescopes observed one of the most extreme rotating neutron stars or pulsars – ever detected in 2016." NASA took to its Instagram account to share the image. NASA says that its spin period is around thousands of times longer than any other pulsar that has ever been observed. NASA added, "Swift Observatory helps detect gamma-ray bursts – large gamma radiation pulses which form when a massive star collapses, creating a black hole – using optical, ultraviolet, and X-ray light."

The composite image shared by NASA shows the remains of a supernova in a spectacular view. About the image, NASA said, "Blank space as black as #Midnight is dotted with tiny white stars across the image. A swirling labyrinth of colors of blue, green, yellow, purple, and red makes up the center of the photo surrounding the neutron star in bright blue." This resulting image of the remains of a supernova is around 9000 light-years from Earth, NASA says in the post.

Netizend have absolutely loved the image as it has garnered more than 1.2 million likes so far. Even the European Space Agency commented that "Space Midnight should be a new colour.”

About Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory

The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory is part of NASA's medium explorer (MIDEX) program which was launched into a low-Earth orbit on a Delta 7320 rocket back on November 20, 2004. It helps detect gamma-ray bursts using optical, ultraviolet, and X-ray light. It can detect large gamma radiation pulses which form when a massive star collapses, creating a black hole. “Its three instruments give scientists the ability to scrutinize gamma-ray bursts like never before. Within seconds of detecting a burst, Swift relays its location to ground stations, allowing both ground-based and space-based telescopes around the world the opportunity to observe the burst's afterglow,” NASA said in a blog post.

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First Published Date: 22 Oct, 23:34 IST
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