Again, NASA’s Lunar X-ray Observatory has given us the most breathtaking picture known to mankind. The images are as beautiful as they are terrestrial: what you see is the first time that humans have measured the speed of an exploding supernova. Using data from 2004, 2008, and combined images from 2017 and 2018, astronomers have published images of a vast, spooky hand through space to hit a red cosmic gas wall.
The images show the speed of an explosion wave at the tip of one of the “fingers” – an explosion wave that travels through space at about 14.5 million kilometers per hour (9 million miles per hour). Some of the remnants of the star, left behind as cosmic debris when it went into supernovae, moved faster, traveling at speeds of more than 17.7 million kilometers / hour (11 million miles). According to a study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters by the lunar team, the mind is extremely fast even though it is a ghostly hand – given the name MSH15-52 – has actually undergone a dramatic decline. This is probably thanks to RCW89K; this is what is happening with the cloud.
According to the team, the cosmic debris must first travel through a low-density cavity of gas, which was created when the outer layer of hydrogen from the star rained down before it exploded, slowing down dramatically after hitting RCW89. The researchers estimate that the “hand” must have traveled an average of about 50 million kilometers per hour (30 million miles). This is an average, not the highest. Light from a supernova first reached Earth about 1,700 years ago, researchers estimate – at a time when the Mayan Empire was evolving, Rome was beginning to convert to Christianity, and India was inventing a new kind of mathematics called trigonometry. But by cosmic standards, MSH 15-52 is a child. In fact, it’s the remnant of the Milky Way’s youngest supernova Rome.
When the star exploded, it left a super dense pulsar behind. This pulsar – the root of the collapse of a larger star, which spins rapidly and transfers energy into space – has created a frustrated hand. It revolves around seven revolutions per second and emits a considerable amount of energy in the cosmic region around it.
