nrao_Gallery_nrao17df04b
Credit: G. Dubner (IAFE, CONICET-University of Buenos Aires) et al.; NRAO/AUI/NSF; A. Loll et al.; T. Temim et al.; F. Seward et al.; Chandra/CXC; Spitzer/JPL-Caltech; XMM-Newton/ESA; and Hubble/STScI
Astronomers produced this dramatic new, highly-detailed image of the Crab Nebula by combining data from telescopes spanning nearly the entire breadth of the electromagnetic spectrum. At its center is a superdense neutron star, rotating once every 33 milliseconds, shooting out rotating lighthouse-like beams of radio waves and light a pulsar. The nebulas intricate shape is caused by a complex interplay of the pulsar, a fast-moving wind of particles coming from the pulsar, and material originally ejected by the supernova explosion and by the star itself before the explosion. This image combines data from five different telescopes: The VLA (radio) 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.
Provider: National Radio Astronomy Observatory
Image Source: https://public.nrao.edu/?post_type=release=6457
Curator: NRAO/AUI/NSF, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Detailed color mapping information coming soon...
Providers | Sign In