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.
The X-ray image was recorded by NASA’s Chandra Observatory which is circling 360 miles above Earth taking images of high-energy locations across the universe, such as the remnants of exploded stars.