Tag Archive for 'Shock wave'

This Webb image shows HH 211, a Herbig-Haro object located 1,000 light-years away in the constellation of Perseus. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb / T. Ray, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.

Outflows from Young Protostars are Mostly Molecular, Webb Astronomers Find

Sep 17, 2023 by Natali Anderson

Herbig-Haro (HH) objects are formed when stellar winds or jets of gas spewing from protostars form shock waves colliding with nearby gas and dust at high...

This illustration shows the IXPE spacecraft (right) observing the blazar Markarian 501 (left). A blazar is a black hole surrounded by a disk of gas and dust with a bright jet of high-energy particles pointed toward Earth. The inset illustration shows high-energy particles in the jet (blue). When the particles hit the shock wave, depicted as a white bar, the particles become energized and emit X-rays as they accelerate. Moving away from the shock, they emit lower-energy light: first visible, then infrared, and radio waves. Farther from the shock, the magnetic field lines are more chaotic, causing more turbulence in the particle stream. Image credit: NASA / Pablo Garcia.

IXPE Spacecraft Examines Particle Acceleration in Blazar Jets

Nov 24, 2022 by News Staff

Blazars are active galactic nuclei with jets of magnetized plasma that point nearly along the line of sight. Most of the light from these extremely luminous...

These craters were formed by a meteoroid impact on Mars on September 5, 2021, the first to be detected by NASA’s InSight lander; taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, this enhanced-color image highlights the dust and soil disturbed by the impact in blue in order to make details more visible to the human eye. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona.

NASA’s InSight Lander Detects Seismic and Acoustic Waves from Meteoroid Impacts on Mars

Sep 20, 2022 by News Staff

The Seismic Experiment for Internal Structure (SEIS) seismometer on NASA’s InSight lander picked up vibrations and sounds from four space rocks that...

In this composite image of Abell 2146, Chandra X-ray data (purple) shows hot gas, and Subaru Telescope optical data shows galaxies (red and white). Image credit: NASA / CXC / University of Nottingham / Russell et al. / NAOJ / Subaru Telescope.

Chandra Spots 1.6-Million-Light-Year-Long Shock Wave in Abell 2146

Jun 9, 2022 by News Staff

Abell 2146 is a pair of colliding galaxy clusters located approximately 2.8 billion light-years away in the constellation of Draco. In this composite image...

V906 Carinae (circled) shines near peak brightness in this image taken on March 23, 2018, three days after the nova was discovered. The beautiful cloud of gas and dust dominating the picture is part of the Carina Nebula. Image credit: A. Maury / J. Fabrega.

Astronomers Track Shock Waves in Nova V906 Carinae

Apr 15, 2020 by News Staff

A nova is a sudden, short-lived brightening of an otherwise inconspicuous star. It occurs when a stream of hydrogen from a companion star flows onto the...

Peering deep into the core of the Crab Nebula, this Hubble image reveals the beating heart of one of the most historic and intensively studied remnants of a supernova, an exploding star. The neutron star at the very center of the nebula has about the same mass as the Sun but compressed into an incredibly dense sphere that is only a few miles across. Spinning 30 times a second, the neutron star shoots out detectable beams of energy that make it look like it’s pulsating. The Hubble snapshot is centered on the region around the neutron star (the rightmost of the two bright stars near the center of this image) and the expanding, tattered, filamentary debris surrounding it. Hubble’s sharp view captures the intricate details of glowing gas, shown in red, that forms a swirling medley of cavities and filaments. Inside this shell is a ghostly blue glow that is radiation given off by electrons spiraling at nearly the speed of light in the powerful magnetic field around the crushed stellar core. This neutron star is a showcase for extreme physical processes and unimaginable cosmic violence. Bright wisps are moving outward from the neutron star at half the speed of light to form an expanding ring. It is thought that these wisps originate from a shock wave that turns the high-speed wind from the neutron star into extremely energetic particles. Image credit: NASA / ESA / J. Hester, ASU / M. Weisskopf, NASA & MSFC.

Astrophysical Shock Waves Generated in the Lab

Jul 18, 2017 by News Staff

A Princeton-led team of researchers has discovered a revolutionary way to generate high-energy shock waves in the lab. Peering deep into the core of the...