It is well known that supernovas can act as cannons, and even that pulsars can act as cannonballs - what is not known is how supernovas do it. The featured image is a combination of radio images from the VLA and DRAO radio observatories, as well as data archived from NASA’s orbiting IRAS infrared observatory. Pictured, the trail of the pulsar is visible extending to the lower left of the supernova remnant. Traveling over 1,000 kilometers per second, the pulsar PSR J0002+6216 (J0002 for short) has already left the supernova remnant CTB 1, and is even fast enough to leave our Galaxy. The pulsar, spinning 8.7 times a second, was discovered using downloadable software searching through data taken by NASA’s orbiting Fermi Gamma-Ray Observatory. About 10,000 years ago, the supernova that created the nebular remnant CTB 1 not only destroyed a massive star but blasted its newly formed neutron star core - a pulsar - out into the Milky Way Galaxy. What could shoot out a neutron star like a cannon ball? A supernova. Most recently, images show that the Didymos – Dimorphos system has developed comet-like tails. One of many Earth-based observatories following the impact, the initial dot is primarily Dimorphos’s larger companion: asteroid Didymos. The featured time-lapse video covers about 20 minutes and was taken from the Les Makes Observatory on France’s Reunion Island, off the southeast coast of southern Africa. One possibility is that 170-meter wide Dimorphos is primarily a rubble pile asteroid and the collision dispersed some of the rubble in the pile. The high brightness of the plume, though, was unexpected by many, and what it means remains a topic of research. The goal of the planned impact was planetary protection - to show that the path of an asteroid can be slightly altered, so that, if done right, a big space rock will miss the Earth. What happens if you crash a spaceship into an asteroid? In the case of NASA’s DART spaceship and the small asteroid Dimorphos, as happened last week, you get quite a plume.
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