Nasa spies the "Hand of God"

By Matthew Moore

What appears, with a little imagination, to be the outstretched fingers were created by a spinning neutron star known as a pulsar buried deep inside the fist, which releases energy as it rotates.

Although the pulsar itself is only 12 miles in diameter, the cloud or nebula that it produces stretches across 150 light years of space.

Dubbed the Hand of God, following on from an 'Eye of God' image released by European astronomers in February, the nebula pictured in the new X-ray was produced by the pulsar B1509, which is about 17,000 light years away.

Neutron stars are created when standard stars run out of fuel and collapse, and Nasa believes that the one pictured is rotating around seven times a second.

The golden-red lights in the image are actually part of a neighbouring gas cloud, which has been energised by the wind of electrons and ions being spewed out from the pulsar.

The colours of the image represent different energy intensities – the blue lights are the areas of highest energy X-rays, followed by green and then red.