Peering deep into the core of the Crab Nebula, this new close-up image captured by ‘Hubble Space Telescope’ reveals the beating heart of one of the most historic, visually appealing, and intensively studied remnants of a supernova, known as the ‘Crab Nebula.’
Unlike many popular images of this well-known object, which highlight the spectacular filaments in the outer regions, this image shows just the inner part of the nebula and combines three separate high-resolution images – each represented in a different colour – taken around ten years apart.
The Hubble Space Telescope snapshot is centred on the region around the neutron star, surrounded by expanding, tattered and filamentary debris. Hubble’s sharp view captures the intricate details of glowing gas, shown in red, that forms a swirling medley of cavities and filaments.
In the image, the inner region can be seen sending out clock-like pulses of radiation and tsunamis of charged particles embedded in magnetic fields. At the very centre of the Crab Nebula lies what remains of the innermost core of the original star, now a strange and exotic object known as a neutron star.
“The neutron star at the very centre of the Crab Nebula has about the same mass as the sun but compressed into an incredibly dense sphere that is only a few miles across. Spinning 30 times a second, the neutron star shoots out detectable beams of energy that make it look like it’s pulsating”, NASA says.
“The neutron star is a showcase for extreme physical processes and unimaginable cosmic violence. Bright wisps are moving outward from the neutron star at half the speed of light to form an expanding ring”, NASA adds. It is thought that these wisps originate from a shock wave that turns the high-speed wind from the neutron star into extremely energetic particles.
When this “heartbeat” radiation signature was first discovered in 1968, astronomers realised they had discovered a new type of astronomical object. Now astronomers know it’s the archetype of a class of supernova remnants called pulsars – or rapidly spinning neutron stars. These interstellar “lighthouse beacons” are invaluable for doing observational experiments on a variety of astronomical phenomena, including measuring gravity waves.
It is said that observations of the Crab supernova were recorded by Chinese astronomers in 1054 AD. The Crab Nebula, which is bright enough to be visible in amateur telescopes and located at 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus (The Bull), is the result of a supernova, a colossal explosion that was the dying act of a massive star.