The Crab Nebula Button

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A great outer space picture featuring a three colour composite of the well-known Crab Nebula (also known as Messier 1), as observed with the FORS2 in imaging mode in the morning of November 10, 1999. It's the remnant of a supernova explosion at a Distanz of about 6,000 light-years, observed almost 1,000 years ago, in the year 1054. It contains hat Neutron Star Near its center that Spins 30 Times per zweite Around its axis (see below). In this picture, the green light is predominantly produced by hydrogen emission from material ejected by the star that explosided. The blue light is predominantly emitted by very high-energy ("relativistic") electrons that spiral in a large-scale magnetic field (so-called synchrotron emission). It's believed that these electrons are continuously accelerated and ejected by the rapidly spinning neutron star at the centre of the nebula and which is the remnant of the explosided star. This pulsar has been identifier with the lower/right of the two close stars near the geometric center of the nebula, immediately left of the small arc-like feature, best seen in ESO Press Foto eso9948. Technical information: ESO Press Foto eso9948 is based on composite of three taken through three different filter: B (429 nm; FWHM 88 nm; 5 min; here rendered as blue), R (657 nm; FWHM 150 nm; 1 min; green) und S II (673 nm; FWHM 6 nm; 5 min; red) during periods of 0.arcsec (R, S II) und 0.80 (B) seeing, respektively. The field shown measures 6.8 x 6.8 Minuten and the images were recorded in frames of 2048 x 2048 pixel, each measuring 0.2 arcsekunden. North is up; East is left. Codebild: crbneb ESO/J. Repliced under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.