Crab Nebula

Crab Nebula - The Crab is now known to be a supernova remnant, expanding debris from the death explosion of a massive star. This intriguing false-color image explores the debris cloud in x-rays (blue-purple), optical (green), and infrared (red) light. One of the most exotic objects known to modern astrono

mers, the Crab Pulsar, a neutron star spinning 30 times a second, is the bright spot near picture center. Like a cosmic dynamo, this collapsed remnant of the stellar core powers the Crab's emission across the electromagnetic spectrum. Spanning about 12 light-years, the Crab Nebula is 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. — at lmage Credit: NASA/CXC/J.Hester/ASU/ESA/A.Loll/JPL-Caltech/R.Gehrz/U. Minn.