Religion and astronomy may not overlap
often, but a new NASA X-ray image captures a
celestial object that resembles the "Hand of
God."
The cosmic "hand of God" photo was
produced when a star exploded and ejected an
enormous cloud of material, which NASA's
Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or
NuSTAR, glimpsed in high-energy X-rays,
shown in blue in the photo. NASA's Chandra
X-ray Observatory had imaged the green and
red parts previously, using lower-energy X-
rays.
"NuSTAR's unique viewpoint, in seeing the
highest-energy X-rays, is showing us well-
studied objects and regions in a whole new
light," NuSTAR telescope principal investigator
Fiona Harrison, of the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said in a
statement.
The new image depicts a pulsar wind nebula,
produced by the dense remnant of a star that
exploded in a supernova. What's left behind is
a pulsar, called PSR B1509-58 (B1509 for
short), which spins around 7 times per second
blowing a wind of particles into material
ejected during the star's death throes.
As these particles interact with nearby
magnetic fields, they produce an X-ray glow
in the shape of a hand. (The pulsar is located
near the bright white spot in the image but
cannot be seen itself, NASA officials said.)
Scientists aren't sure whether the ejected
material actually assumes the shape of a
hand, or whether its interaction with the
pulsar's particles is just making it appear that
way.
"We don't know if the hand shape is an
optical illusion," Hongjun An, of McGill
University in Montreal, said in a statement.
"With NuSTAR, the hand looks more like a fist,
which is giving us some clues."
The red cloud appearing at the fingertips is a
separate structure called RCW 89. The pulsar's
wind may be heating the cloud to produce the
low-energy X-ray glow, astronomers believe.
The X-ray energies seen by NuSTAR range
from 7 to 25 kiloelectron volts, or keV,
whereas the energies seen by Chandra range
from 0.5 to 2 keV.
The Hand of God is an example of pareidolia,
the psychological phenomenon of perceiving
familiar shapes in random or vague images.
Other common forms of pareidolia include
seeing animals or faces in clouds, or the man
in the moon. Despite its supernatural
appearance, the Hand of God was produced
by natural astrophysical phenomena.
