- NASA’s Hubble revisited Crab Nebula 25 years after first observation
- Crab Nebula is a supernova remnant from a star explosion in 1054
- Nebula is expanding at 3.4 million miles per hour, 6,500 light-years away
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope recently revisited the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant, 25 years after its initial observations. The new images reveal stunning details of its intricate structure and its expansion.
In an Instagram post, the European Space Agency (ESA) confirmed that the glowing cloud is the Crab Nebula, the remains of a star that exploded in 1054.
It further mentioned that it shone so brightly for weeks that it was even visible in daylight. "Today, it continues to expand 6 500 light-years away, still changing before our eyes," wrote ESA.
The findings, published in The Astrophysical Journal, revealed that when Hubble observed the Crab Nebula again, it found that the Crab Nebula, located 6,500 light-years away, had evolved over 25 years.
The recent observations have helped the scientists to track its growth by comparing images taken decades apart.
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"Hubble captured the nebula's intricate filamentary structure, as well as the considerable outward movement of those filaments over 25 years, at a pace of 3.4 million miles per hour," wrote NASA.
Hubble's long-term observations provide valuable insights into the nebula's expansion and evolution.
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"We tend to think of the sky as being unchanging, immutable," astronomer William Blair of Johns Hopkins University, who led the new observations, said as quoted by NASA.
"However, with the longevity of the Hubble Space Telescope, even an object like the Crab Nebula is revealed to be in motion, still expanding from the explosion nearly a millennium ago."
The scientists found that the filaments around the periphery have moved more than those in the centre. The expansion is driven by a central pulsar, which injects energy into the surrounding gas.
"Even though I've worked with Hubble quite a bit, I was still struck by the amount of detailed structure we can see and the increased resolution with the Wide Field Camera 3, as compared to 25 years ago," Blair said.
