The X-ray space telescope XMM-Newton of the European Space Agency has imaged the Manatee Nebula, a gorgeous cosmic creature whose ‘head’ exhibits extraordinary particle acceleration.
The Manatee Nebula, also known as W50, is believed to be a sizable supernova remnant left behind from a massive star explosion that occurred some 30 000 years ago and threw its gaseous outer shells across the sky. It is one of the largest known features of its kind, measuring as much as four full Moons.
A black hole survives at the remnant’s center, which is unusual for a supernova. This central’microquasar,’ known as SS 433, generates tremendous jets of particles traveling at close to a quarter of the speed of light, punching through the gassy shells and forming the double-lobed configuration.
The red dot in the center of the image represents SS 433. Yellow (soft X-rays), magenta (middle energy X-rays), and cyan (hard X-ray emission) are the colors used to show the XMM-Newton data, while red and green are the radio and optical wavelengths, respectively, captured by the Very Large Array and the Skinakas Observatory in Greece. The study also used data from NASA’s NuSTAR and Chandra satellites (not shown in this image).
The nebula gained attention in 2018 when the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory, which is sensitive to very high energy gamma-ray photons, discovered the presence of highly energetic particles (hundreds of tera electron volts) but was unable to pinpoint where the particles were coming from within the Manatee.
XMM-Newton was instrumental in pinpointing the region of particle acceleration in the X-ray jet erupting from the Manatee’s head, which begins about 100 light years away from the microquasar (represented by the magneta and cyan colors on the left side of SS 433) and extends to about 300 light years (coinciding with the radio ‘ear’ where the shock terminates).
According to study leader Samar Safi-Harb of the University of Manitoba in Canada, “we believe the particles are getting accelerated to very high energies in the head of the Manatee through an unusually energetic particle acceleration process. The black hole outflow likely made its way there and has been re-energized to high-energy radiation at that location, perhaps due to shock waves in the expanding gas clouds and enhanced magnetic fields .”
The nebula will be studied further as a nearby laboratory for investigating a wide range of astrophysical phenomena connected with the outflows of various galactic and extragalactic sources. Further investigations by ESA’s upcoming Athena X-ray observatory will reveal even more delicate information regarding the inner workings of this intriguing cosmic Manatee.
Source: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2207.00573.pdf
Image Credit: ESA
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