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A Shocking Space Movie

Posted by michael on from the cosmic-war dept.

MagnetarJones writes "Multiple observations made over several months with the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope captured the spectacle of matter and antimatter propelled to nearly the speed of light by the Crab pulsar, a rapidly rotating neutron star the size of Manhattan. "Through this movie, the Crab Nebula has come to life," says Jeff Hester of Arizona State University."

2 of 29 comments (clear)

  1. Flamebait? Is it really too much to ask... by hackwrench · · Score: 1, Insightful

    for common units?

  2. Re:More information about the anti-matter? by guybarr · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Maybe because they're moving at identical speeds in opposite directions under the influence of a magnetic field?

    I'm not really sure. How do they know the magnetic configurstion around that N.S. ? and besides, these waves are supposed, AFAI understand, to be composed of electron-positron plasmas, I sincerely doubt they have the resolution required to plot single particles' trajectories ...

    My guess is that such a claim is probably based on spectroscopy :

    1) take a strong wavelength
    2) substruct (probably do some kind of reverse integral transform) doppler,
    3) get e+-e- anhilation energy
    4) 1+2+3 => e+-e- plasma portion.

    I can't reasonably think on any other plausible way, but then again, I'll be glad to find out ...

    --
    Working for necessity's mother.