ESO: Dead Star Circled by Light
Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2018 3:48 pm
Dead Star Circled by Light
ESO Photo Release | VLT | MUSE | 2018 Apr 05
Identification of the Central Compact Object in the Young Supernova Remnant 1E 0102.2-7219 - Frédéric P. A. Vogt et al
ESO Photo Release | VLT | MUSE | 2018 Apr 05
MUSE data points to isolated neutron star beyond our galaxy
New images from ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile and other telescopes reveal a rich landscape of stars and glowing clouds of gas in one of our closest neighbouring galaxies, the Small Magellanic Cloud. The pictures have allowed astronomers to identify an elusive stellar corpse buried among filaments of gas left behind by a 2000-year-old supernova explosion. The MUSE instrument was used to establish where this elusive object is hiding, and existing Chandra X-ray Observatory data confirmed its identity as an isolated neutron star.
Spectacular new pictures, created from images from both ground- and space-based telescopes [1], tell the story of the hunt for an elusive missing object hidden amid a complex tangle of gaseous filaments in the Small Magellanic Cloud, about 200 000 light-years from Earth.
New data from the MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile has revealed a remarkable ring of gas in a system called 1E 0102.2-7219, expanding slowly within the depths of numerous other fast-moving filaments of gas and dust left behind after a supernova explosion. This discovery allowed a team led by Frédéric Vogt, an ESO Fellow in Chile, to track down the first ever isolated neutron star with low magnetic field located beyond our own Milky Way galaxy. ...
Identification of the Central Compact Object in the Young Supernova Remnant 1E 0102.2-7219 - Frédéric P. A. Vogt et al
- Nature Astronomy (online 02 Apr 2018) DOI: 10.1038/s41550-018-0433-0
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1803.01006 > 02 Mar 2018