CSIRO: Freaky pulsar flaunts its tail

[MargaritaMc]

CSIRO Blog: Freaky pulsar flaunts its tail
February 19, 2014

Click to view full size image

Got my boa and I’m ready to go: pulsar IGR J11014-6103. Image credit: X-ray (pink): NASA/CXC/ISDC/L.Pavan et al, Radio (green): CSIRO/ATNF/ATCA Optical: 2MASS/UMass/IPAC-Caltech/NASA/NSF

Like an exotic dancer trailing a feather boa, a newly studied weirdo pulsar is trailing a ‘tail’ of particles across the sky.

It’s a freakishly long tail too — ten times as long as the distance between the Sun and our nearest neighbouring star.

The tail is actually a ‘jet’ of charged particles coming out of the pulsar. Other pulsars have jets, but none as extreme as this one.
Read more at:
http://csirouniverseblog.com/2014/02/19 ... -its-tail/

L. Pavan et al. The long helical jet of the Lighthouse nebula, IGR J11014-6103. Astronomy & Astrophysics, Volume 562, February 2014: online 18 February.

Preprint available from http://arxiv.org/abs/1309.6792

[Ann]

Well, those pulsars are jetting and jetsetting and flashing and flaunting all over the sky, aren't they?

And twirling. And twirling.

Ann

[MargaritaMc]

Australian Broadcasting Corporation:
Runaway pulsar has astronomers scratching their heads

A newly discovered fast-moving pulsar streaking across the galaxy with enormous x-ray jets, defies the laws of physics, according to scientists. A report in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, says the pulsar called IGR J1104-6103, also known as the Lighthouse nebula, is moving at more than eight million kilometres per hour and generating the longest jets in the galaxy. ... [A]ccording to study co-author, Associate Professor Miroslav Filipovic of the University of Western Sydney,
"we haven't seen anything like this before. ... It's moving at great speed, wobbling like a top as it spins, and creating these powerful high energy particle jets 37 light years long; ten times the distance between us and the nearest star."

The pulsar's wobbling motion causes the jets to twist into a distinct corkscrew shape.
"One of the biggest mysteries is that we only see these jets in x-rays, there's no radio signature, that's totally shocking to us," says Filipovic.

Read more at:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/ ... 948039.htm

[MargaritaMc]

NASA press release

Chandra:IGR J11014-6103: Runaway Pulsar Firing an Extraordinary Jet

Chandra blog by Lucia Pavan: Running At Breakneck Speed With Open Arms

[BDanielMayfield]

It might be way too old, but since it' a "runaway" pulsar has it been backtracked to its point of origin? It would be neat if were found to be connected to a supernova remnant.

Bruce

[MargaritaMc]

It might be way too old, but since it' a "runaway" pulsar has it been backtracked to its point of origin? It would be neat if were found to be connected to a supernova remnant.

Bruce

Dr Pavan writes, in the Chandra blog linked above,( http://www.chandra.si.edu/blog/node/485)

We could also confirm that the pulsar was born some 15000 years ago during the explosion that left over the debris visible just north to it (what is called a supernova remnant), as was suggested by other astronomers with a much shorter Chandra observation (http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2012/igrj11014/). The two systems are at the same distance from us (around 20000 light-years), and the long X-ray stripe produced by the pulsar have a huge length of almost 40 light years! The pulsar is traveling since the time of the explosion at an impressive velocity of more than 1000 km/s.

The 2012 Chandra observation that she refers to says:

The large area of diffuse X-rays seen by XMM-Newton was produced when a massive star exploded as a supernova, leaving behind a debris field, or supernova remnant known as SNR MSH 11-16A.

An article and composite view can be seen at Phil Platt's blog for 2012/06/29

I've tried to find out more about SNR MSH 11-16A, but it didn't return a result at SIMBAD. Has anyone any ideas of where or how to find out more? And/or what the MSH stands for?

Margarita

[BDanielMayfield]

It might be way too old, but since it' a "runaway" pulsar has it been backtracked to its point of origin? It would be neat if were found to be connected to a supernova remnant.

Bruce

Dr Pavan writes, in the Chandra blog linked above,( http://www.chandra.si.edu/blog/node/485)

We could also confirm that the pulsar was born some 15000 years ago during the explosion that left over the debris visible just north to it (what is called a supernova remnant), as was suggested by other astronomers with a much shorter Chandra observation (http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2012/igrj11014/). The two systems are at the same distance from us (around 20000 light-years), and the long X-ray stripe produced by the pulsar have a huge length of almost 40 light years! The pulsar is traveling since the time of the explosion at an impressive velocity of more than 1000 km/s.

The 2012 Chandra observation that she refers to says:

The large area of diffuse X-rays seen by XMM-Newton was produced when a massive star exploded as a supernova, leaving behind a debris field, or supernova remnant known as SNR MSH 11-16A.

An article and composite view can be seen at Phil Platt's blog for 2012/06/29

I've tried to find out more about SNR MSH 11-16A, but it didn't return a result at SIMBAD. Has anyone any ideas of where or how to find out more? And/or what the MSH stands for?

Margarita

Thanks Margarita. I should have read your links prior to making my last, sleep deprived comment at about 3:30 am local time. 15,000 years isn't old at all astronomically.

I haven't come across "MSH" before either, but maybe it's a list of SN remnants?

[Beyond]

MSH = Mills, Slee, & Hill. ... The people who (first)(?) cataloged it.

[MargaritaMc]

I can't stand unsolved puzzles!

MSH 11-16A is listed as SNR G292.0+1.8 in The Chandra Supernova Remnant Catalog and at SIMBAD.

SIMBAD also provides the information that MSH stands for "Mills+Slee+Hills" in its Dictionary of Nomenclature of Celestial Objects

I'm assuming that the G in SNR G292.0+1.8 stands for Galactic (i.e, it's in this galaxy) and the numbers are its coordinates in degrees.
Phew!!
M


PS. Clever Beyond! You were posting just as I was!

[Beyond]

. Clever Beyond! You were posting just as I was!

But i started way before you. I'm not anywhere near as fast as you are. It took two Google's to get it. As for the "G", you've probably got it. Keeping track of what all those numbers and letters mean, is just too far outside of my cave. I'm just in it for the pictures.