New Insights Into the Crab Nebula
Five observatories teamed up to spy on the Crab Nebula and the results are incredible. The VLA (radio) views are shown in red; Spitzer Space Telescope (infrared) in yellow; Hubble Space Telescope (visible) in green; XMM-Newton (ultraviolet) in blue; and Chandra X-ray Observatory (X-ray) in purple. The Crab Nebula is the remnant of a bright supernova explosion first spotted by the Chinese in 1054. Located 6,500 light-years from Earth, the Nebula is home to a super-dense neutron star. The stellar powerhouse -- known as a pulsar and seen as a bright dot in the center of the image -- emits pulsing lighthouse-like beams of radio waves and light as it rotates (or pulses) once every 33 milliseconds.
The super-dense star does more that put on a dazzling display of stellar strobe lights, it also gives the nebula it's intricate shape. A fast-moving blast of particles emanating from the pulsar, combines with material ejected by the supernova explosion and its progenitor star, to form the distinctive shape we know as the Crab Nebula.
This incredible new video starts by showing us a composite image of the Crab Nebula, created by combining data from five observatories spanning nearly the entire breadth of the electromagnetic spectrum: the Very Large Array, the Spitzer Space Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope, the XMM-Newton Observatory, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
From the image, the video dissolves to the red-colored radio-light view illustrating how a neutron star’s fierce “wind” of charged particles energizes the nebula, ultimately causing it to emit the radio waves. Next we see the yellow-colored infrared image from Spitzer, which shows the glow of dust particles absorbing ultraviolet and visible light. Then we see through Hubble's eyes as the green-colored visible-light image offers a sharp view of hot filaments that permeate this nebula. Lastly, we see the blue-colored ultraviolet image and the purple-colored X-ray image, which highlight the effect of an energetic cloud of electrons driven by a rapidly rotating neutron star at the center of the nebula.
Image & Source Credit: Credits: NASA, ESA, J. DePasquale (STScI)