June 26, 2009--Meet the Large Hadron Collider's role model.

The shock wave plowing through the supernova remnant RCW 86, seen above in x-ray and visible light, acts as a superefficient particle accelerator, new images from the Chandra X-ray Observatory reveal.

Although the shock wave is moving rapidly, its energy is not heating the surrounding gas as much as it should, scientists say. The new images show that this extra energy is instead powering up particles and firing them out into space at nearly the speed of light.