Gamma Radiation Pulsar Found in Supernova Remnant Three Full Moons in Diameter

Ten thousand years ago, when saber-toothed cats and woolly mammoths still roamed the earth, a star exploded in the constellation Cepheus, 4,600 light-years away. Whoever saw it then must have marveled at it's brightness, which must have been visible also during the say.

Today, that cataclysmic explosion has left a circular remnant that's about three full moons in diameter. Scientists have known for a long time that there was something strange about it. They had detected some form of radiation in the vicinity. "Nobody knew where it was coming from," said Alice Harding of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Only lately, when astronomers were testing NASA's Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope, that they discovered it to be a pulsar - a neutron star releasing pulses of radiation. What's new about this pulsar is that it was streaming gamma radiation, which was unheard of until then. Pulsars, like the Vela Pulsar (left), have been known to emit radiation in the radio and x-ray wavelengths. Now that astronomers know gamma pulsars exist, they expect to find more.

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Exploding Star Depicted in Renderings

Have you ever seen a star explode before? Most likely, not. But this is the next best thing. In this series of renderings, you can actually see how a star turns nova or supernova. This star is, or was, Cassiopeia A and it has taken 325 years to explode. See, it's not that different from how planets are depicted to explode in movies.

Exploding Star Viewed in Distant Galaxy

This is a picture of galaxy NGC 5584. It is 75 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. Notice the big, bright, white "dot" near the end of one of its lower right spiral arms. It is actually a star in the process of exploding, otherwise known as a supernova. This is the second time in 11 years that the galaxy has "hosted" a dying star.