Breathtaking view of the Crab Nubela

by **Brent Burns** on Thu Dec 01, 2005 3:45 pm

This photo was taken through the Hubble Telescope. It is quite a very intricate view of the Crab Nebula.

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by **James Foote** on Thu Dec 01, 2005 3:48 pm

That's ridiculous...

by **Timbalaned** on Thu Dec 01, 2005 6:10 pm

so what exactly is that?

by **bste_lax** on Thu Dec 01, 2005 6:31 pm

Timbalaned wrote:so what exactly is that?

According to wikipedia (which is my second favorite site behind google for finding info):

The Crab Nebula (also known as Messier Object 1, M1 or NGC 1952) is a gaseous diffuse nebula in the constellation Taurus. It is the remnant of a supernova that was recorded by Chinese and Arab astronomers in 1054 as being visible during daylight for 23 days. Located at a distance of about 6500 ly from Earth, it has a diameter of 6 ly and is expanding at a rate of 1000 km per second. A neutron star in the center of the nebula rotates 30 times per second.

by **monkeylax** on Thu Dec 01, 2005 8:24 pm

Brent, any chance you could post the link to this photo? I would really like to see a high-res. version of this picture.

by **benji** on Thu Dec 01, 2005 8:48 pm

Just right-click the image, go to properties, and the image URL will be there

... or just click this... http://www.space.com/images/051201_iod_ ... ula_02.jpg

by **Brent Burns** on Thu Dec 01, 2005 8:51 pm

benji wrote:Just right-click the image, go to properties, and the image URL will be there

... or just click this... http://www.space.com/images/051201_iod_ ... ula_02.jpg

Dang! Hey benji, you beat me to this! :wink:

That is right as I usually would right-click on any image in order to click on "properties" to get the url addy.

If you can't get the high resolution you want, just go to http://www.space.com

by **cjwilhelmi** on Thu Dec 01, 2005 9:02 pm

If I remember astronomy from freshman year than if it is 6500 light years away, we are looking at something that occured 6500 years ago. It could look a lot different if we could somehow see a current picture of it.