Astronomy Picture of the Day

Composite Crab


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zorg.ch
#70725 by @ 27.03.2005 00:00 - nach oben -
Composite Crab


Explanation:

The Crab Pulsar, a city-sized, magnetized
neutron star
spinning 30 times a second,
lies at the center of this composite image of the inner region of
the well-known Crab
Nebula
.

The spectacular picture combines optical data (red) from the
Hubble Space Telescope
and x-ray images (blue) from the
Chandra
Observatory
, also used in the popular
Crab
Pulsar movies
.

Like a
cosmic
dynamo
the pulsar powers the x-ray
and optical emission from the nebula, accelerating
charged particles and producing the eerie, glowing x-ray jets.

Ring-like structures are x-ray emitting regions where
the high energy particles slam into the nebular material.

The innermost ring is about a light-year across.

With more mass than
the
Sun
and the density of an
atomic nucleus,
the spinning pulsar is the collapsed core of a massive star
that exploded, while the nebula is the
expanding remnant of the star's outer layers.

The supernova explosion was witnessed in
the year 1054.




Credit & Copyright
zorg.ch
#70730 by @ 27.03.2005 11:23 - nach oben -
hurä crap!!