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About the image: The Crab Nebula (M1) is classed as supernova remnant that lies a mere 6,523 light years from earth. It is the remains of a large star that exploded in a huge supernova explosion that was first recorded by Chinese astronomers back in 1054AD as well as by other cultures from other parts of the world around the same time. The nebula was discovered by English astronomer John Bevis back in the year 1731, it is the first astronomical object identified that corresponded to a historical supernova. It is currently measured to be 7 arcminutes in diameter and is estimated to be expanding at a rate of 1,500 km per second - or 0.5% the speed of light. At it's center lies what remains of the original star - a neutron star known as the Crab pulsar, which has an estimated diameter of just 28 to 30 km. It spins on it's axis 30.2 times per second, as it spins it emits pulses of ultra intense gamma rays, X-rays and on through to radio waves. It is considered to be the brightest persistent gamma ray source in the night sky.
What is a Neutron Star (Spoiler - they are INSANE!)? A Neutron star is what is left of a large stars that go supernova but are not quite large enough to form a black hole. The Neutron star is the collapsed core of super giants with a total mass of between 10 to 25 solar masses (1 solar mass being the entire mass of our own sun). Aside from black holes, they are the smallest and densest objects in the universe, comprising entirely of neutrons. Although neutron stars are no longer undergoing nuclear fusion, they are insanely hot, with surface temperatures of around 600,000 Kelvin, that's 599,726 °C - (to compare, our own sun has a surface temperature of a mere 5,778 Kelvin). They are also so dense, that if you took a sugar cube size block of neutron star matter, it would weigh the equivalent of 3 billion tons! Due to the immense mass of the star, the gravity at the stars surface would be around 200 billion times more than the earth. Neutron stars also have an insanely powerful magnetic field, often between 100 million and 1 quadrillion times more powerful than the earths magnetic field. And lets not forget their insane spin rate! The fastest rotating neutron star was measured to spin 716 times per second, that a mind boggling 43,000 revolutions per minute! Where in the sky is it?
The Crab Nebula can be found high above Orion, in the constellation of Taurus. It is very close to the star TianGuan.
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