A ghostly grasp

This ghostly scene was captured by NASA’s

Chandra X-ray Observatory, showing an eerie ‘hand’ reaching out and grasping onto a giant gas cloud called RCW 89. The ‘hand’ was forged by a supernova that left behind a dense pulsar, which has since spawned a large bubble of energetic particles around itself. The blast wave and surrounding material from the explosion are now colliding with the gas cloud RCW 89.

The supernova remnant MSH 15-52 is located approximately 17,000 light years from Earth and is one of the youngest supernova remnants in our galaxy. Light from the supernova explosion is thought to have reached Earth just 1,700 years ago.