Supernova Remnant W50 Resembles A Manatee

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory has adopted a new nickname for W50 of "The Manatee Nebula," because the likeness between it and a resting Florida Manatee is too uncanny to ignore. Left: The W50 supernova remnant in radio (green) glows against the infrared background of stars and dust (red). Right: A Florida Manatee rests underwater in Three Sisters Springs in Crystal River, Florida.
Credit: Left: NSF's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), NRAO/AUI/NSF, K. Golap, M. Goss; NASA’s Wide Field Survey Explorer (WISE). Right: Tracy Colson

A supernova remnant found in the constellation of Aquila has been imaged and is found to resemble a resting Florida Manatee.

When a star runs out of fuel or reaches critical mass, it explodes into a supernove. The explosion expels stellar material at a rate of about 30,000 kilometers per second (10% of the speed of light).

The structure that results from the supernova is called a Supernova Remnant (SNR). It is bounded by the shockwave from the supernova and is made up of the ejected material from the explosion.

The Crab Nebula is an example of a supernova remnant.

Some of the SNR found in the sky resemble common objects or animals such as the Owl Nebula, The Crab Nebula, or the Veil Nebula.

Biggest Quasar Blast From A Super Massive Black Hole Discovered

Artist's impression of outflow of quasar SDSS J1106+1939

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have discovered a quasar with the most energetic outflow ever seen, at least five times more powerful than any that have been observed to date.

When a star goes supernova, it creates a pulsar. These are extremely dense neutron stars that are highly magnetized and rotate emitting a beam of electromagnetic radiation. Pulsar is short for "pulsating star". The Crab Nebula contains a pulsar that rotates at a rate of 30 times per second.

Compared to a pulsar, a quasar does not have a neutron star at its center. Instead of a neutron star, it has a black hole; a super-massive black hole that astronomers call 'monsters'.

APEX Space Telescope Linked To Two Others For Sharpest Observation of Quasar 3C 279

An international team of astronomers has observed the heart of a distant quasar with unprecedented sharpness, two million times finer than human vision. The observations, made by connecting the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope ^[1] to two others on different continents for the first time, is a crucial step towards the dramatic scientific goal of the “Event Horizon Telescope” project^[2]: imaging the supermassive black holes at the centre of our own galaxy and others.

Astronomers connected APEX, in Chile, to the Submillimeter Array (SMA)^[3] in Hawaii, USA, and the Submillimeter Telescope (SMT)^[4] in Arizona, USA. They were able to make the sharpest direct observation ever^[5], of the centre of a distant galaxy, the bright quasar 3C 279, which contains a supermassive black hole with a mass about one billion times that of the Sun, and is so far from Earth that its light has taken more than 5 billion years to reach us. APEX is a collaboration between the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR), the Onsala Space Observatory (OSO) and ESO. APEX is operated by ESO.

The telescopes were linked using a technique known as Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). Larger telescopes can make sharper observations, and interferometry allows multiple telescopes to act like a single telescope as large as the separation — or “baseline” — between them. Using VLBI, the sharpest observations can be achieved by making the separation between telescopes as large as possible. For their quasar observations, the team used the three telescopes to create an interferometer with transcontinental baseline lengths of 9447 km from Chile to Hawaii, 7174 km from Chile to Arizona and 4627 km from Arizona to Hawaii. Connecting APEX in Chile to the network was crucial, as it contributed the longest baselines.