Images by Date
Images by Category
Solar System
Stars
Exoplanets
White Dwarfs
Supernovas
Neutron Stars
Black Holes
Milky Way Galaxy
Normal Galaxies
Quasars
Galaxy Clusters
Cosmology/Deep Field
Miscellaneous
Images by Interest
Space Scoop for Kids
4K JPG
Multiwavelength
Sky Map
Constellations
Photo Blog
Top Rated Images
Image Handouts
Desktops
Fits Files
Image Tutorials
Photo Album Tutorial
False Color
Cosmic Distance
Look-Back Time
Scale & Distance
Angular Measurement
Images & Processing
AVM/Metadata
Image Use Policy
Web Shortcuts
Chandra Blog
RSS Feed
Chronicle
Email Newsletter
News & Noteworthy
Image Use Policy
Questions & Answers
Glossary of Terms
Download Guide
Get Adobe Reader
RCW 103 Animations
Click for low-resolution animation
Tour of RCW 103
Quicktime MPEG With closed-captions (at YouTube)

When stars have more than about 8 times as much mass as the Sun, they end their lives in a spectacular explosion called a supernova. The outer layers of the star are hurtled out into space at millions of miles per hour, leaving a debris field of gas and dust. Where the star once was located, a small, incredibly dense object called a neutron star is often found. While only 10 miles or so across, the tightly packed neutrons in such a star contain more mass than the entire Sun.

The supernova remnant called RCW 103 is a by-product of one of these explosions and the neutron star it left behind, known as 1E 1613, is proving to be particularly interesting. For years, astronomers have known that 1E 1613 shows a regular brightening and dimming in its X-rays that repeats about every six and a half hours. It could be a neutron star that is rotating much more slowly than other neutron stars, or it could be a faster-spinning neutron star that has a normal star as a companion.

New data from four high-energy telescopes, Chandra, Swift, NuSTAR and XMM-Newton, have shown that the unusually slow spin is the correct explanation and that.1E 1613 has the properties of a magnetar. Magnetars are neutron stars that possess enormously powerful magnetic fields, trillions of times greater than that on the Sun.

While it is still unclear why 1E 1613 is spinning so slowly, scientists do have some ideas. One leading scenario is that debris from the exploded star has fallen back onto magnetic field lines around the spinning neutron star, causing it to spin more slowly with time. Searches are currently being made for other very slowly spinning magnetars to study this idea in more detail.
[Runtime: 03:06]

(Credit: NASA/CXC/A. Hobart)




Return to RCW 103 (September 8, 2016)