Author: Mark Alexander

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The Crab Nebula

The Crab Nebula from Visible to X-Ray
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, ASI, Hubble, Chandra, IXPE
 

What powers the Crab Nebula? A city-sized magnetized neutron star spinning around 30 times a second. Known as the Crab Pulsar, it is the bright spot in the center of the gaseous swirl at the nebula’s core. About 10 light-years across, the spectacular picture of the Crab Nebula (M1) frames a swirling central disk and complex filaments of surrounding and expanding glowing gas. The picture combines visible light from the Hubble Space Telescope in red and blue with X-ray light from the Chandra X-ray Observatory shown in white, and diffuse X-ray emission detected by Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) in diffuse purple. The central pulsar powers the Crab Nebula‘s emission and expansion by slightly slowing its spin rate, which drives out a wind of energetic electrons. The featured image released today, the 25th Anniversary of the launch of NASA’s flagship-class X-ray Observatory: Chandra.

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Glub Glub Glub

*wipes mouth with back of hand*

(Tumblr flagged this exact same post as “sexually explicit and goes against community guidelines.”) Hey Tumblr, have you seen some of the shit that gets posted to your website? And this is too much for you to stomach?)

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