Jellyfish Nebula’s inky injection created a pulsar

STELLAR SHOCK.
Every star eventually exhausts its fuel, but only large stars implode after using up their thermonuclear supply. Then their outer layers collapse on the newly formed neutron star and shoot back out as a supernova explosion. Sometime within the past 30,000 years, this process created the Jellyfish Nebula and what scientists think is a rapidly spinning neutron star, or pulsar, at its southern edge known as J0617. This composite image (inset) combines new Chandra X-ray Observatory data (shown in blue), with Sloan Digital Sky Survey imagery (all other colors) to show that a circular structure (faint blue) surrounds the pulsar, which also shoots out a large jetlike feature. Scientists say the ring could be a sign that highspeed winds were shot out and then slowed abruptly; or the ring might be like a shock wave sprinting out ahead.