Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                               2021 February 9

                         Flashes of the Crab Pulsar
                  Video Credit & Copyright: Martin Fiedler

   Explanation: It somehow survived an explosion that would surely have
   destroyed our Sun. Now it is spins 30 times a second and is famous for
   the its rapid flashes. It is the Crab Pulsar, the rotating neutron star
   remnant of the supernova that created the Crab Nebula. A careful eye
   can spot the pulsar flashes in the featured time-lapse video, just
   above the image center. The video was created by adding together images
   taken only when the pulsar was flashing, as well as co-added images
   from other relative times. The Crab Pulsar flashes may have been first
   noted by an unknown woman attending a public observing night at the
   University of Chicago in 1957 -- but who was not believed. The
   progenitor supernova explosion was seen by many in the year 1054 AD.
   The expanding Crab Nebula remains a picturesque expanding gas cloud
   that glows across the electromagnetic spectrum. The pulsar is now
   thought to have survived the supernova explosion because it is composed
   of extremely-dense quantum-degenerate matter.

                      Tomorrow's picture: lasing space
     __________________________________________________________________

       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
                NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices
                      A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC
                             & Michigan Tech. U.
--- SBBSecho 3.12-Linux