X-raying the Crab Nebula

Chandra discovers X-ray ring around cosmic powerhouse in the Crab Nebula

September 28, 1999: After barely two months in space, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has taken a stunning image of the Crab Nebula, the spectacular remains of a stellar explosion, and has revealed something never seen before: a brilliant ring around the nebula's heart.

Right: The Crab Nebula as seen by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The image links to a 533x533-pixel, 54K JPG. Credit: NASA and Chandra Science Center

Combined with observations from the Hubble Space Telescope, the image provides important clues to the puzzle of how the cosmic "generator," a pulsing neutron star, energizes the nebula, which still glows brightly almost 1,000 years after the explosion.

"The inner ring is unique," said Professor Jeff Hester of Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. "It has never been seen before, and it should tell us a lot about how the energy from the pulsar gets into the nebula. It's like finding the transmission lines between the power plant and the light bulb."

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Professor Mal Ruderman of Columbia University, New York, NY, agreed. "The X-rays Chandra sees are the best tracer of where the energy is. With images such as these, we can directly diagnose what is going on."

What is going on, according to Dr. Martin Weisskopf, Chandra Project Scientist from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL, is awesome. "The Crab pulsar is accelerating particles up to the speed of light and flinging them out into interstellar space at an incredible rate."

The image shows tilted rings or waves of high-energy particles that appear to have been flung outward over the distance of a light year from the central star, and high-energy jets of particles blasting away from the neutron star in a direction perpendicular to the spiral.

Hubble Space Telescope images have shown moving knots and wisps around the neutron star, and previous X-ray images have shown the outer parts of the jet and hinted at the ring structure. With Chandra's exceptional resolution, the jet can be traced all the way in to the neutron star, and the ring pattern clearly appears. The image was made with Chandra's Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer and High Energy Transmission Grating.

Recent Headlines September 28: Peering into the heart of a Crab September 27: The Bouncing Baby Universe September 23: Sunrise at the South Pole September 22: Now you see it - now you don't

The Crab Nebula, easily the most intensively studied object beyond our solar system, is the remnant of a star that was observed to explode in 1054 A.D. Chinese astronomers in that year reported a "guest star" that appeared suddenly and remained visible for weeks, even during daytime. From gamma-ray telescopes to radio telescopes, the Crab has been observed using virtually every astronomical instrument that could see that part of the sky.

Unraveling the mysteries of the Crab has proven to be the door to insight after insight into the workings of the universe. The Crab convincingly tied the origin of enigmatic "pulsars" to the stellar cataclysms known as supernovae. Observations of the expanding cloud of filaments in the Crab were instrumental in confirming the cosmic origin of the chemical elements from which planets (and people) are made.

The nebula is located 6,000 light years from Earth in the constellation Taurus. The Crab pulsar, which was discovered by radio astronomers in 1968, is a neutron star rotating 30 times per second. Neutron stars are formed in the seconds before a supernova explosion when gravity crushes the central core of the star to densities 50 trillion times that of lead and a diameter of only 12 miles.

Another consequence of the dramatic collapse is that neutron stars are rapidly rotating and highly magnetized. Like a gigantic cosmic generator, the rotating magnet generates 10 quadrillion volts of electricity, 30 million times that of a typical lightning bolt.

"It is an incredibly efficient generator," Ruderman explained. "More than ninety-five percent efficient. There's nothing like it on Earth."

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. TRW, Inc., Redondo Beach, CA, is the prime contractor for the spacecraft. The Smithsonian's Chandra X-ray Center controls science and flight operations from Cambridge, MA. Chandra images are posted to the Internet at: http://chandra.nasa.gov and http://chandra.harvard.edu

• New Chandra Images Released - X-ray pictures from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory reveal previously unobserved features in the remnants of three different supernova explosions. Sept. 23
• Chandra peers into the Large Magellanic Cloud -- The X-ray Observatory's High Resolution Camera catches extraordinary pictures of a distant supernova remnant. September 13, 1999
• NASA Unveils First Light Images from Chandra -- The newest Great Observatory is making an immediate impact with spectacular new views of the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant and a distant quasar. August 26, 1999
• Studying the Titanium Star -- When the Chandra X-ray Observatory took its "first light" image, it wasn't looking at just another star shining in the darkness. It was watching a foundry distribute its wares to the rest of the galaxy. August 26, 1999
• Why Launch Chandra at Night? -- Chandra's beautiful early morning launch will place it into an orbit unlike that of NASA's other Great Observatories, July 23, 1999

• Xraytelescope.com, science news from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory
• Chandra X-ray Observatory Center home page, with links to education, news, and technical pages.
• Chandra news from Marshall Space Flight Center
• Chandra Project Science is managed at NASA/Marshall, has links to individual instruments and the prime contractor.
• X-ray astrophysics branch at NASA/Marshall conducts a broad range of research and technology work, as well as supporting the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
  Additional images of the Crab Nebula are available from NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day web site:
• High Energy Crab Nebula | Pulsar Powered Crab | M1: Filaments of the Crab Nebula | Exploding Crab Nebula
• And from the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space web nebula page.