In the year 1054 A.D., Chinese astronomers were startled by the appearance of a new star, so bright that it was visible in broad daylight for several weeks. Today, the Crab Nebula is visible at the site of the "Guest Star". Located about 6,500 light-years from Earth, the Crab Nebula is the remnant of a star that began its life with about 10 times the mass of our own Sun. Its life ended on July 4, 1054 when it exploded as a supernova. In this image, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has zoomed in on the center of the Crab to reveal its structure with unprecedented detail.
The Crab Nebula data were obtained by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 in 1995. Images taken with five different color filters have been combined to construct this new false-color picture. Resembling an abstract painting by Jackson Pollock, the image shows ragged shreds of gas that are expanding away from the explosion site at over 3 million miles per hour.
The core of the star has survived the explosion as a "pulsar," visible in the Hubble image as the lower of the two moderately bright stars to the upper left of center. The pulsar is a neutron star that spins on its axis 30 times a second. It heats its surroundings, creating the ghostly diffuse bluish-green glowing gas cloud in its vicinity, including a blue arc just to its right.
The colorful network of filaments is the material from the outer layers of the star that was expelled during the explosion. The picture is somewhat deceptive in that the filaments appear to be close to the pulsar. In reality, the yellowish green filaments toward the bottom of the image are closer to us, and approaching at some 300 miles per second. The orange and pink filaments toward the top of the picture include material behind the pulsar, rushing away from us at similar speeds.
The various colors in the picture arise from different chemical elements in the expanding gas, including hydrogen (orange), nitrogen (red), sulfur (pink), and oxygen (green). The shades of color represent variations in the temperature and density of the gas, as well as changes in the elemental composition. These chemical elements, some of them newly created during the evolution and explosion of the star and now blasted back into space, will eventually be incorporated into new stars and planets. Astronomers believe that the chemical elements in the Earth and even in our own bodies, such as carbon, oxygen, and iron, were made in other exploding stars billions of years ago.
Kris Davidson (U. Minn.) led the research team of William P. Blair (JHU), Robert A. Fesen (Dartmouth), Alan Uomoto (JHU), Gordon M. MacAlpine (U. Mich.), and Richard B.C. Henry (U. Okla.) in the collection of the HST data. The Hubble Heritage Team created the color image from black and white data processed by Dr. Blair.
Credits
NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA);Acknowledgment: W. P. Blair (JHU)
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Crab Nebula, M1, NGC 1952 |
| Object Description | Supernova Remnant |
| R.A. Position | 05h 34m 31.96s |
| Dec. Position | 22° 0' 52.09" |
| Constellation | Taurus |
| Distance | The distance to NGC 1952 is 6500 light-years (2.0 kpc). |
| Dimensions | The image is 1.6 arcminutes along the bottom (3.0 light-years or 0.9 pc). |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | Principal Astronomers: K. Davidson (U. Minn., Project Principal Investigator), W.P. Blair (Johns Hopkins), R.A. Fesen (Dartmouth), A. Uomoto (Johns Hopkins), G.M. MacAlpine (U. Mich.), and R.B.C. Henry (U. Okla.). |
| Instrument | HST>WFPC2 |
| Exposure Dates | January 1995, April 1995, Exposure Time: 10 hours |
| Filters | F502N ([O III]), F547M (Stromgren y), F656W (H-alpha), F658N ([N II]), and F673W ([S II]) |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | Green: F502N ([O III]) Blue: F547M (Stromgren y) Orange: F656W (H-alpha) Red: F658N ([N II]) Pink: F673W ([S II]) |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
