The Crab Nebula is a nearby example of the debris left behind when a star undergoes a violent death in a supernova explosion. However, despite decades of study, this supernova remnant continues to maintain a degree of mystery: what type of star was responsible for the creation of the Crab Nebula, and what was the nature of the explosion? The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has provided a new view of the Crab, including the highest-quality infrared data yet available to aid scientists as they explore the detailed structure and chemical composition of the remnant. These clues are helping to unravel the unusual way that the star exploded about 1000 years ago.
https://esawebb.org/news/weic2417/

Animation showing the Crab Supernova explosion and its remant.

Credit:

ESA/Hubble (M. Kornmesser & L. L. Christensen)

#space #nebula #pulsar #supernova #astrophotography #photography #science #nature #NASA

The Spinning Pulsar of the Crab Nebula
* Image Credit: NASA: X-ray: Chandra (CXC), Optical: Hubble (STScI), Infrared: Spitzer (JPL-Caltech)

Explanation:
At the core of the Crab Nebula lies a city-sized, magnetized neutron star spinning 30 times a second. Known as the Crab Pulsar, it is the bright spot in the center of the gaseous swirl at the nebula's core. About twelve light-years across, the spectacular picture frames the glowing gas, cavities and swirling filaments near the Crab Nebula's center. The featured picture combines visible light from the Hubble Space Telescope in purple, X-ray light from the Chandra X-ray Observatory in blue, and infrared light from the Spitzer Space Telescope in red. Like a cosmic dynamo the Crab pulsar powers the emission from the nebula, driving a shock wave through surrounding material and accelerating the spiraling electrons. With more mass than the Sun and the density of an atomic nucleus,the spinning pulsar is the collapsed core of a massive star that exploded. The outer parts of the Crab Nebula are the expanding remnants of the star's component gasses. The supernova explosion was witnessed on planet Earth in the year 1054.
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-messier-catalog/messier-1/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_Pulsar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_star
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap220304.html
https://chandra.harvard.edu/chronicle/0201/vela.html

#space #nebula #pulsar #astrophotography #photography #science #nature #NASA

M1: The Expanding Crab Nebula
* Video Credit & Copyright: Detlef Hartmann
https://app.astrobin.com/u/DetlefHartmann#gallery

Explanation:
Are your eyes good enough to see the Crab Nebula expand? The Crab Nebula is cataloged as M1, the first on Charles Messier's famous list of things which are not comets. In fact, the Crab is now known to be a supernova remnant, an expanding cloud of debris from the explosion of a massive star. The violent birth of the Crab was witnessed by astronomers in the year 1054. Roughly 10 light-years across today, the nebula is still expanding at a rate of over 1,000 kilometers per second. Over the past decade, its expansion has been documented in this stunning time-lapse movie. In each year from 2008 to 2022, an image was produced with the same telescope and camera from a remote observatory in Austria. The sharp, processed frames even reveal the dynamic energetic emission surrounding the rapidly spinning pulsar at the center. The Crab Nebula lies about 6,500 light-years away toward the constellation of the Bull (Taurus).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Messier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_object
http://www.messier.seds.org/more/m001_sn.html
https://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2002/0052/animations.html
https://app.astrobin.com/i/ija7jc?r=B
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230115.html
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180909.html

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110901.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurus_(constellation)

https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/objects/supernova_remnants.html

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230320.html

#space #nebula #astrophotography #photography #science #nature #NASA