Astronomers using the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array have captured a new view of a 20,000-year-old supernova remnant that resembles an endangered species – the Florida manatee (Trichechus manatus latirostris).
The W50 supernova remnant in radio, green, against the infrared background of stars and dust, red (NRAO / AUI / NSF / K. Golap / M. Goss / NASA’s Wide Field Survey Explorer)
The supernova remnant, known SNR G039.7-02.0 or the W50 nebula, located 18,000 light years away in the constellation of Aquila.
W50 formed when a giant star exploded as a supernova around twenty thousand years ago, sending its outer gases flying outward in an expanding bubble.
The remaining, gravitationally-crushed relic of that giant star, most likely a black hole, feeds on gas from a very close, companion star. The cannibalized gas collects in a disk around the black hole. The disk and black hole’s network of powerful magnetic field lines acts like an enormous railroad system to snag charged particles out of the disk and channel them outward in powerful jets traveling at nearly the speed of light. This system of a black hole and its feeder star shines brightly in both radio waves and X-rays and is known collectively as the SS433 microquasar.
Over time, the SS433’s jets have forced their way through the expanding gases of the W50 bubble, eventually punching bulges outward on either side. The jets also wobble, like an unstable spinning top, and blaze vivid corkscrew patterns across the inflating bulges.
When the W50 image reached Ms Heidi Winter, the Director’s Executive Assistant at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, she saw the likeness to a manatee, the endangered marine mammals known as sea cows that congregate in warm waters in the southeastern United States.
A Florida manatee rests underwater in Three Sisters Springs in Crystal River, Florida (Tracy Colson)
Florida Manatees are gentle giants that average around 10 feet long, weigh over 1000 pounds, and spend up to eight hours a day grazing on sea plants. They occupy the remainder of their day resting, often on their backs with their flippers crossed over their large bellies, in a pose closely resembling W50.
Thanks to Ms Winter’s suggestion, astronomers have adopted a new nickname for W50 – the Manatee Nebula.
