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PSR B1509-58 in 60 Seconds
Narrator (Megan Watzke, CXC): A small dense object is responsible for the remarkably complex
and intriguing structures seen in this image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. At the
center of this image is a very young and powerful pulsar, known as PSR B1509-58. Pulsars are
rapidly spinning neutron stars that are created when massive stars run out of fuel and collapse.
This pulsar is spewing energy out into space and creates this beautiful X-ray nebula, including
a structure that resembles a hand. Finger-like structures extend to the upper right, apparently
transferring energy into knots of material in a neighboring cloud of gas and dust that
is seen in other wavelengths. This makes these knots glow brightly in X-rays, which is why
they appear red and orange in this Chandra image. Astronomers think that this pulsar
is about 1700 years old and lies about 17,000 light years from Earth.
.4-1222 in 60 Seconds Plus
Narrator (Megan Watzke, CXC): Two galaxy clusters, each a quadrillion times the mass of the Sun,
collided to form the system formally known as Macs J0025.4-1222. When these clusters
merged at speeds of millions of miles per hour, the hot gas in each cluster collided
and slowed down, but the dark matter in each system did not. Optical images from Hubble
were used to infer the distribution of the total mass, which includes dark matter, using
a technique known as gravitational lensing. This is seen as blue in the image. Chandra
data enabled astronomers to accurately map the position of the ordinary matter, mostly
in the form of hot gas, which glows brightly in X-rays and is colored pink in the composite.
The separation between the pink and the blue provides direct evidence for the existence
of dark matter.
In some ways, Macs J0025 can be thought of as a prequel to the famous system known as
the Bullet Cluster. At a much larger distance of 5.7 billion light years, astronomers are
witnessing this collision that occurred long before the Bullet Cluster. This finding is
important because it independently verifies the results found for the Bullet Cluster in
2006, and shows once again that dark matter is real.