Starship Asterisk*

Am I the only one to "see" the face of a jaguar or tiger in the inset image?

Maybe! Not only do I not see a jaguar or tiger, but I don't see the Virgin Mary or Elvis, either!

I find the description of this image to be very confusing. It would help my understanding of the image if someone were to provide some labeling. A few questions:

- Is the whole 'cloud' the supernova remnant referred to?

- Where, exactly, is the 'shock wave'?

- Why would the neutron star, a different 'remnant', be located almost exactly at the edge of the 'cloud' remnant"?

- When it says, "...disrupting an interstellar cloud as the shock sweeps through preexisting material", what 'interstellar cloud' is it referring to? What 'shock'? What 'preexisting material'?

Having a labeled diagram that could be superimposed on the image with a 'click' would be a very useful addition when APOD publishes a complicated image & explanation.

Thanks for any clarification!


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What a great image. All the more interesting because it shows a very asymmetrical expansion--filaments and lacunae--not too dissimilar from the recent Big Bang universe map rather than a nice boring spherical shape. Remembering the images from a Scientific American article about universe beginnings (I think one that showed the universe map, but which certainly showed a series of images depicting the expansion stages, including a lumpy period that ossified into what the universe map gives us now) makes me wonder: is this picture is an example of fractalness? In other words, does the math/physics that describes the supernova cloud expansion work just the same in that gazillion times larger universal expansion and give the same kind of filament and lacunae results the only real difference being scale? And what about that big hole in the foreground (Elvis's eyesocket, so to speak)--is that what would happen as a result of "disrupting an intersteller cloud" of regular matter, or does the boundary describe something else within the lacuna?

I see a pair of bent blue knees, no cat women tho.

fastartceetoo, read the text again.
The star novaed inside of a cloud of cool difuse material, the nova shock wave is compressing that material into an irregularly spherical surface of visibly excited matter, thus the xrays. The pre-existing material is what is glowing as the nova's shock wave encounters it on its journey away from nova central. I am not sure if the shock wave is sweeping that material in front of it, along with it, or leaving some of it behind and now not glowing. If all of it is being swept along, then some of the original star that was blownoff prior to the nova event is at the front of the shock wave as well. The shock wave is where the material is glowing; basically the surface of the irregular sphere in the image is the location of the shock wave.
The nova remnent, the neutron star, is located near the center of the explosion, not the edge of the 'cloud'. (read text again)

The irregularity may be due to resistance of the preexisting material slowing the shock wave, or from irregularities in the explosions force within the star's interior. Polar regions seem to have more energetic forces, and I suspect that one of the stars poles was pointing at the area of the inset, with the most high xray activity. The opposite side of the sphere has a similar energetic area, but we do not see it well enough in the image to see it.

As stars have rotation and many convection currents within their body, any sudden collapse from gravity will retain all angular momentum components; this may have an effect upon the dispersion of energy in the nova explosion, and thus translate into the shape of the shock wave and material remnant cloud, like the crab nebula.

Thanks for asking, I hadn't said all this before and didn't know I knew it !

As for the 1000 km/sec velocity of the neutron star nova remnant; it is an artifact of an unballanced explosive force during the nova. It kicked the neutron star in its present direction. I would be interested to know that direction. Is it away from the inset area? Indicating the inset hot spot is the result of that unballaced explosion, and thusly no equal glowing area on the opposite side of the sphere, due to the opposite polar region having a likewise extra energetic energy, will be found.

Thanks, kovil... you're right, I read it wrong. I was looking for a pinpoint source within the inset, not the larger field. After I cleaned my glasses I could clearly see the pinpoint source (ie, the neuton star) near the top left corner of the Chandra close-up inset.

Also, the pre-existing interstellar cloud does not show up, of course, except where the supernova debris cloud is in collision with it; ie, in the Chandra inset.

(But I still think a few labels would have helped! )