The observations shed surprising new light on a well-studied cosmic object.
The orange lines highlight the shape of the magnetic field associated with the Crab Nebula, as determined by NASA’s IXPE spacecraft. The lines are superimposed on a composite image made with data from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory , Hubble Space Telescope , and Spitzer Space Telescope .
"This is a clear indication that even the more complex models developed in the past, with the use of advanced numerical techniques, do not fully capture the complexity of this object," Bucciantini, lead author of a new study detailing the IXPE observations, said in the statement.
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