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The Most Spectacular Images on the Web--Part II

© Sonya Thomas-Haley

Continuing on our tour of great astronomy images, we go to M1, the Crab Nebula in the constellation Taurus. This is the remnant of a supernova explosion that took place in 1054 A.D. The star collapsed and exploded, leaving behind that wispy, colorful cloud. But what is truly interesting here is the collapsed core of the star -- what is now a pulsar, a neutron star that in this case rotates 30 times a second. The Crab Nebula is 6,300 light years away. If this were to happen to, say, Vega, which is just 25 light years from us, the radiation would certainly wipe out all life on earth (will this be the plot of the next action/scifi movie, do you think? Armageddon II: The Final Blast).

A supernova emits in one blast as much energy as an entire galaxy. That image on the right, the close-up in on the pulsar, is what really fascinates me, though. The waves of radiation look like ripples on a pond. Amazing how something so violent can look so benign.

Next we go to the Helix Nebula, NGC7293 in Aquarius. This image is actually a close-up of a portion of the nebula. To see it in context, look at the full image of this planetary nebula. It is one of the closest planetary nebulae, at about 450 light years. It is bright, but spread out over a large area so you might have trouble catching it in your scope.

A "planetary nebula" is just the remnant left by the death of a star. This is, perhaps, an image of the fate of our own sun. Check out this animation of the formation of the Helix. (If you don't have a high-speed Internet connection, this might take quite a while to download.)

Next is M57, the Ring Nebula in Lyra. This is also a planetary nebula easily spotted in a telescope. Interestingly, the distance to it is still uncertain (scientists don't always have ALL the answers and distance measurements can be tricky). We happen to be looking "down the barrel" at it, so to speak. If we were looking at it from the side, it might look like this, though scientists are still debating exact details of its structure.

What fascinates me here is that these colors are close to being true colors. We will often see astronomical images that have been colored artificially in order to bring out certain features. But that is not the case here. A rainbow in space.

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