Astronomy: Messier 1 the Crab nebula

This image of spiral galaxy Messier 1 is known as the Crab nebula in the constellation Taurus. It's the remnant of a supernova explosion at a distance of about 6.000 light years, the well known bright new star in the year 1054. It contains a city sized neutron star as remnant of the exploded star, a pulsar that spins 30 times per second around its axis. The nebula around the neutron star is the expanding remnant of the star's outer layers. In this fist picture, the green light is predominantly produced by hydrogen emission from material ejected by the star that exploded. The blue light is predominantly emitted by very high-energy ("relativistic") electrons that spiral in a large-scale magnetic field (so-called syncrotron emission). It's believed that these electrons are continuously accelerated and ejected by the rapidly spinning neutron star at the center of the nebula. The second picture is taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and dates from 1996. In red enhanced colors it shows the nebula's core. The ring-like structures are x-ray emitting regions where high energy particles slam into the nebular material. In the center of the rings lies the city-sized neutron star. Although small, it has more mass than our Sun and much stronger gravity. Related subjects >> Messier catalog of 110 deep sky objects >> Charles Messier >> Milky Way Galaxy