--- title: "NASA Shows Off Image That Looks an Awful Lot Like Skeleton Fingers Floating in Space" description: "Astronomers have spotted a ghostly skeleton hand floating in outer space some 16,000 light-years from Earth." date: "2023-10-31" modified: "2023-10-31" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-image-skeleton-hand-x-ray" categories: - "NASA" - "Space" tags: - "ixpe" - "NASA" - "pulsar" - "the digest" - "x-ray" --- # NASA Shows Off Image That Looks an Awful Lot Like Skeleton Fingers Floating in Space ![Astronomers have spotted a ghostly skeleton hand floating in outer space some 16,000 light-years from Earth.]() *\Image: NASA\* ## Ghost in the Hand Astronomers have spotted what looks just like a ghostly skeleton hand floating in outer space some 16,000 light-years from Earth. A spooky image taken by NASA's newest X-ray telescope, the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), shows a pulsar wind nebula dubbed MSH 15-52 casting shadowy finger-like protrusions in the form of energetic particles, forming a distinct shape of a ghostly hand. Pulsars are rapidly spinning neutron stars, the extremely dense remains of collapsed supergiant stars. They emit strong magnetic fields, causing them to shoot highly energized particles out in jets, forming a pulsar wind nebula. In the case of MSH 15-52, these jets formed the spitting image of a ghostly hand — a creepy apparition fit for Halloween. "The charged particles producing the X-rays travel along the magnetic field, determining the basic shape of the nebula, like the bones do in a person's hand," said Stanford University's Roger Romani, lead author of a [new paper]() published in the *Astrophysical Journal*, in a [statement](). https://youtu.be/Q2IUQ3vu5vw ## Spooky Fingers NASA's IXPE focused its instruments on the nebula for a whopping 17 days, representing the longest observation of a single object since it was launched in 2021, per NASA. "We're all familiar with X-rays as a diagnostic medical tool for humans," said co-author and Stanford physics PhD Josephine Wong in the statement. "Here we're using X-rays in a different way, but they are again revealing information that is otherwise hidden from us." The observation sheds new light on how mingling magnetic fields in pulsar wind nebulas interact with their surroundings, getting a big initial boost around the hand's "wrist," before being driven to areas where these magnetic fields are more uniform. "We've uncovered the life history of super energetic matter and antimatter particles around the pulsar," said co-author and Stanford postdoctoral research fellow Niccolò Di Lalla. "This teaches us about how pulsars can act as particle accelerators." **More on nebulas:** *[James Webb Spots Numerous Pairs of Planets, Hanging Out With No Stars]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()