| NASA Center: |
Hubble Space Telescope Center |
|---|
| Image # : |
PR00-15 |
|---|
| Date : |
06/01/2000
|
|---|
|
Title
Peering into the Heart of the Crab Nebula
Full Description
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 Pollack, the image shows ragged shards 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.
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.
Keywords
Hubble Space Telescope HST Crab Nebula Wide Field Planetary Camera WFPC
Subject Category
Deep Space Studies, Hubble,
Reference Numbers
- Center:
HSTI
- Center Number:
PR00-15
- GRIN DataBase Number:
GPN-2000-000895
Source Information
- Creator/Photographer: NASA, The Hubble Heritage Team, STScI, AURA ODPeering into the Heart
- Original Source: DIGITAL
| Resolution | Format | Width
(Pixels) | Height
(Pixels) | Size
(KBytes) |
Thumbnail |
.jpg |
88 |
95 |
21 |
Small |
.jpg |
627 |
704 |
519 |
Medium |
.jpg |
1470 |
1650 |
1,705 |
Large |
.jpg |
980 |
1100 |
1,075 |
Other relevant NASA Web sites:
• NASA Headquarters
• NASA History Office
• NASA Image eXchange (NIX)
• NASA Multimedia Gallery
• NASA Human Spaceflight
Updated October 31, 2002
• History Questions: NASA History Office
• Responsible NASA Official: Steve Garber
• Author: Michael Hahn. Editor: Dwayne A. Day
• Curator & Technical Questions: Erin Needham
• NASA's Privacy Statement
|
