An introduction to the Crab Nebula
Here is an interesting little tidbit. It has come to my attention that the world does not know enough about astronomy. Whenever I give somebody my screen name or email address (which many of you know is Crabnebula and then 13) They ask me what is that or how did you come up with the name. Well of course Crabnebula would be THE crab nebula, my favorite astronomical object in the sky since well.....i was 13 (hence the 13 at the end). I was bumming around Astronomy.com tod
ay and came across this image. Here is the best picture ever taken of the crabnebula curtsey of the Hubble.
Here is a little info about my favorite nebula, from an article taken from astronomy.com ...don't worry short and sweet. I promise ...
December 6, 2005
The Crab Nebula (M1) has fascinated generations of observers since Chinese astronomers witnessed its supernova explosion July 4, 1054. The Crab Nebula's colorful and distinct features offer astronomers clues to the universe's evolution. The more detail scientists can see, the more information they can learn about an object. No other M1 image offers a better view than this one.
The new image combines 24 individual exposures taken with HST's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). The camera gathered the exposures in October 1999, January 2000, and December 2000. Images were taken through different color filters, each unveiling different elements within M1. Blue reveals neutral oxygen; green shows singly ionized sulfur; and red highlights the presence of doubly ionized oxygen.
Astronomers suspect exploding stars help make the universe a dustier place. But new Spitzer Space Telescope images show the Crab Nebula, the wreckage of a star that exploded in A.D. 1054, contains none of the fine, micron-wide, smoke-size dust particles expected to condense out of supernova ejecta."This is a real surprise," says Tea Temim, the University of Minnesota graduate student who led the study. She presented the images June 1 at the American Astronomical Society's summer meeting in Minneapolis. "The images are exciting because we're filling in the puzzle with infrared," she says. "Infrared is where we can find out about dust formation." "We know dust forms in supernovae," says Robert Gehrz, Temim's adviser and a collaborator on the study. "SN 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud formed dust about 600 days after the explosion." But estimates of the amount of dust it produced range over a factor of 10,000, and Gehrz notes recent studies suggest lower estimates may be more accurate. Elements like carbon, for example, should be among the first to condense and clump together. "Theoretically, we expect as much as a solar mass of dust to form, but when we look with infrared instruments, we see very little," Gehrz tells Astronomy.It's difficult to distinguish newly formed dust in recent supernovae from dust produced by the star before it erupted. Here, too, the Crab Nebula seems cleaner than expected. The new images show no circumstellar halo of dust shed from the Crab's progenitor. So, where did this smoke-size dust go? "I think shockwaves from the explosion may have destroyed it," explains Gehrz.
ay and came across this image. Here is the best picture ever taken of the crabnebula curtsey of the Hubble. Here is a little info about my favorite nebula, from an article taken from astronomy.com ...don't worry short and sweet. I promise ...
December 6, 2005
The Crab Nebula (M1) has fascinated generations of observers since Chinese astronomers witnessed its supernova explosion July 4, 1054. The Crab Nebula's colorful and distinct features offer astronomers clues to the universe's evolution. The more detail scientists can see, the more information they can learn about an object. No other M1 image offers a better view than this one.
The new image combines 24 individual exposures taken with HST's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). The camera gathered the exposures in October 1999, January 2000, and December 2000. Images were taken through different color filters, each unveiling different elements within M1. Blue reveals neutral oxygen; green shows singly ionized sulfur; and red highlights the presence of doubly ionized oxygen.
Astronomers suspect exploding stars help make the universe a dustier place. But new Spitzer Space Telescope images show the Crab Nebula, the wreckage of a star that exploded in A.D. 1054, contains none of the fine, micron-wide, smoke-size dust particles expected to condense out of supernova ejecta."This is a real surprise," says Tea Temim, the University of Minnesota graduate student who led the study. She presented the images June 1 at the American Astronomical Society's summer meeting in Minneapolis. "The images are exciting because we're filling in the puzzle with infrared," she says. "Infrared is where we can find out about dust formation." "We know dust forms in supernovae," says Robert Gehrz, Temim's adviser and a collaborator on the study. "SN 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud formed dust about 600 days after the explosion." But estimates of the amount of dust it produced range over a factor of 10,000, and Gehrz notes recent studies suggest lower estimates may be more accurate. Elements like carbon, for example, should be among the first to condense and clump together. "Theoretically, we expect as much as a solar mass of dust to form, but when we look with infrared instruments, we see very little," Gehrz tells Astronomy.It's difficult to distinguish newly formed dust in recent supernovae from dust produced by the star before it erupted. Here, too, the Crab Nebula seems cleaner than expected. The new images show no circumstellar halo of dust shed from the Crab's progenitor. So, where did this smoke-size dust go? "I think shockwaves from the explosion may have destroyed it," explains Gehrz.
posted by susan at 4:23 PM
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