An amazing view captured by the telescope... NASA publishes an image of the "Cosmic Hand"

A team of astronomers has released a composite image revealing a stunning cosmic scene: a massive cloud of gas resembling a human hand reaching across space toward a glowing red cloud.

This new image, which combines data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Australian Radio Telescope Array (ATCA), sheds new light on the remnants of a star that exploded thousands of years ago.

At the heart of this image lies a neutron star, a pulsar (a special type of neutron star) the size of a small city (only about 12 miles in diameter), but it spins seven times per second and generates a magnetic field 15 trillion times stronger than Earth's.

This pulsar was formed when its parent star ran out of fuel, causing it to collapse in on itself before exploding outwards as a supernova, scattering debris into space.

The remnant core's extreme rotational speed and immense magnetism have transformed it into one of the most powerful particle generators in the galaxy.

A color combination reveals the structure:

Blue, orange, and yellow represent X-ray data.

Red represents radio data.

Gold represents hydrogen gas visible in optical light.

Who is behind the discovery?

This work, published in The Astrophysical Journal, was led by researcher Shu-Ming Zhang of the University of Hong Kong, with contributions from other researchers from the same university and the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics.

Candra is managed by NASA's Marshall Space Center, and science operations are overseen by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.