NASA astrophotography on January 15, 2023: The Hubble Telescope captures the spooky Crab Nebula
The NASA Astronomy of the Day photo of January 15, 2023 is one of the spooky Crab Nebula images captured by the Hubble Telescope.
NASA’s Astronomy photo of the day takes people into a fascinating different dimension of the everyday universe. Today, it took a strange turn with the Crab Nebula! “This is the mess left over when a star explodes. The Crab Nebula, the result of a supernova seen in 1054 AD, is filled with mysterious filaments,” NASA explains of the images. The filaments in the image are not only extremely complex, but appear to have a smaller mass than that released in the original supernova and a higher velocity than would be expected from a free explosion.
This image was taken by NASA’s Hubble Space telescope, while the surprising fact is that the Crab Nebula spans about 10 light years! You can see a pulsar: a neutron star with a mass Sun, but only on the size of a small town in the center of the Nebula. Incredibly, the Crab Pulsar spins about 30 times per second.
What is a nebula?
Nebulae are essentially giant clouds of gas and dust in outer space that can become birthplaces for stars. They are known as “star nurseries”, sometimes becoming their deathbeds, and sometimes both.
Speaking of nebulae formation, these nebulae form in places where the interstellar medium has enough density to form clouds. This can happen due to gravity, gravity could have pulled all the gas and dust together or as mentioned earlier due to the death of a star releasing a huge amount of particles into space. .
Do you know?
NASA’s Hubble Spatial The telescope has exceeded its age limit! NASA has revealed that the Hubble Telescope was designed to last about 15 years when it was launched in 1990. But thanks to five successful astronaut missions, the telescope’s technology has been modified and improved, “and the telescope is still scientifically effective to this day.”
