The Best Space Images of 2023

A Skeletal Hand in Space

Image: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Stanford Univ./R. Romani et al. (Chandra); NASA/MSFC (IXPE); Infared: NASA/JPL-Caltech/DECaPS; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Schmidt)

Behold, an eerie spectral space hand. Okay, it’s actually a pulsar wind nebula some 16,000 light-years from Earth, seen thanks to data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE). NASA shared this image on Halloween—perfectly reasonable, given the nebula’s creepy resemblance to an outstretched hand.

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