Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos!Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe isfeatured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2025 May 8
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA,STScI;Jeff Hester (ASU), Allison Loll (ASU), Tea Temim (Princeton University)
Explanation: Cataloged as M1, the Crab Nebula is the first onCharles Messier's famous list of things which arenot comets.In fact, the Crab Nebula isnow known to be a supernova remnant, an expandingcloud of debris from the death explosion of a massive star.The violent birth of the Crab was witnessed by astronomersin the year 1054.Roughly10 light-years across,the nebula is still expandingat a rateof about 1,500 kilometers per second.You can see the expansion bycomparing these sharp images from theHubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope.The Crab's dynamic, fragmented filaments were captured in visiblelight by Hubble in 2005 and Webb in infrared light in 2023.This cosmic crustaceanlies about 6,500 light-years away in theconstellation Taurus.
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