Human vision is limited to only a certain range of wavelengths, but that does not necessarily mean that we can never understand the whole complexity of light in our universe.
Different devices can perceive parts of the cosmos that are completely invisible to our eyes, showing not only the dynamics of the stars, but also their utterly staggering beauty. This is what we see in a new collection of photos taken by the Chandra X-ray Observatory, which combines data from other instruments to create more wavelength views.
Because different wavelengths of light have different energies, these photos show the dynamics of space objects from low energy to high. This helps scientists to understand the mechanisms behind them.
The Aquarius in the photo, from Chandra in the X-ray range (violet) and the near-infrared Hubble Space Telescope (red and blue), is a pair of stars moving around each other 650 light-years from Earth. One star is the red giant known as the Mira Variable, which is nearing the end of its life. Stars of this kind have already lost at least half of their matter and they are pulsating, this time being a thousand times brighter than the sun.
The second star is the white dwarf – a dead star that has already run out of nuclear fuel. In this pair, the matter erupted by the red giant is slashed by a white dwarf. This matter accumulates on its surface and over time causes huge thermonuclear explosions, during which matter is ejected into space.
Such a violent interaction creates a gas and dust nebula around the couple.
Located 11,000 light-years away, Cassiopeia A is one of the most famous and well-studied objects in Deer Leap. It is called the supernova remnant – it is the remnant of a massive star explosion. Chandra X-ray data in the photo combine data from the Telescope Very Large Array (dark purple, blue and white) and Hubble (orange).
Such different wavelengths reveal what is actually happening in an expanding cloud made up of dead star debris. With the combined data, scientists can identify the various elements involved in the explosion. Only Chandra’s data show that the exploding star emitted 10,000 times more sulfur, 20,000 times more silicon, 70,000 times more iron, and millions of times more oxygen than the Earth.
This information is quite important because it tells us what elements are formed when a star dies. Based on these data, scientists can find out a lot about living stars in order to make predictions about similar stars in our galaxy.
This photo shows two different effects of one dead star called PSR B2224 + 65. Pink Strips X-ray emitted from one of the types of neutron stars, pulsar poles. The pulsar is the collapsed nucleus of a dead massive star that emits pulsating radiation during rotation.
In addition, PSR B2224 + 65 e. წ. Is a runaway star; It travels in the galaxy at a speed of 1600 kilometers per second. Such a movement creates a kind of footprint in interstellar space.
One of the largest collections of objects in the universe is galaxy clusters. There are thousands of galaxies in such clusters that gravitate together and interact with each other by gravity. The cluster in the photo, named Abell 2597, is about a billion light-years away. Multi-wavelength astronomy helps astronomers study the behavior of its central supermassive black hole.
Just a few years ago, astronomers found evidence that this monster spews molecular gas when matter gravitationally merges. This molecular gas then flows back into the black hole again and the absorption cycle begins again. These phenomena are called “fountains”. Hot streams directed outwards and cold streams directed inwards were observed with two different instruments; Then Chandra’s X-ray data revealed that they are part of the same process.
Finally, this photo shows two galaxies fused together. His name is NGC 4490. Multi-wavelength astronomy has revealed the secret of its nucleus. It turned out that it has not one, but two supermassive black holes, one of which is visible only in optical data, the other in radio and infrared.
The dual core is the merit of this very merging process; Both galaxies had their own supermassive black hole. Eventually these two black holes also merge to form one much larger, monster black hole.
The image combines Chandra X-ray (violet) and Hubble optical (red, green, blue) data.
Larger versions of the photos can be found on the Chandra Space Observatory website.
Prepared according to ScienceAlert.
Space objects: Aquarius, Cassiopeia A, PSR B 2224, Abell 2597, NGC 4490
Discussion about this post