Supernova Remnant Kesteven 79 and Magnetar
Massive stars end their life as supernovas, releasing massive amounts of energy and matter. What remains of the star is a small and extremely dense remnant: a neutron star or a black hole. The green and pink bubble dominating this image is Kesteven 79, the remnant of a supernova explosion located about 23,000 light-years away from Earth. The explosion left behind a a young neutron star with a weak magnetic field, which can be seen as the blue spot at the centre of Kesteven 79. The blue object at the bottom of the image is a neutron star with an extremely strong magnetic field, known as a magnetar. Astronomers discovered this magnetar, named 3XMM +003317, in 2013. While the neutron star in the supernova remnant is relatively young, the magnetar is likely a million years old; the age difference means that it is very unlikely that the magnetar arose from the explosion that created Kesteven 79, but must have formed much earlier. This false-color image is a composite of 15 observations performed between 2004 and 2009 with the EPIC MOS camera on board European Space Agency's XMM-Newton X-ray telescope. The image combines data collected at energies from to keV (shown in red), to 2 keV (shown in green) and 2 to 7 keV (shown in blue).
Size: 4273px × 4479px
Photo credit: © Photo Researchers / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 3xmm, 79, astronomical, astronomy, black, body, celestial, cosmos, deep, dust, exploration, explosion, formation, forming, galaxies, galaxy, gas, heavenly, hole, interstellar, +00331, kesteven, magnetar, nebula, nebulae, neutron, object, radiation, remnant, science, sky, space, star, stellar, supernova, supernovae, universe, wind
