Crab Nebula seen in different wavelength - The Crab Nebula in multi wavelength: M1, the...

Crab Nebula seen in different wavelength - The Crab Nebula in multi wavelength: M1, the Crab Nebula, is the rest of a supernova that exploded on July 4, 1054. It is located about 6500 light years from Earth in the constellation Taurus. At the heart of this nebula is a pulsar. To obtain this photo, different observatories and telescopes combined their observations; the VLA provided the radio image (in red), the Spitzer telescope the infrared image (in yellow), the Hubble telescope for the visible part (here in green), XMM-Newton the ultraviolet image (in blue) and the Chandra telescope for X-ray data (purple). The pulsar is the bright spot in the center of the image. The unusual image was produced by combining data from telescopes spanning almost the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to X-rays. The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) provided information about the nebula gathered in the radio regime (colored in red). Nasa's Spitzer Space Telescope took images in the infrared (yellow). The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope provided the images made in optical wavelengths (colored in green). ESA's XMM-Newton telescope observed the Crab Nebula in the ultraviolet (blue) and Nasa's Chandra X-ray Observatory provided the data for X-ray radiation (purple). The Crab Nebula, located 6500 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Taurus, is the result of a supernova explosion which was observed by Chinese and other astronomers in 1054. At its centre is a pulsar: a super-dense neutron star, spinning once every 33 milliseconds, shooting out rotating light-like beams of radio waves and visible light. Surrounding the pulsar lies a mix of material; some of it was originally expelled from the star before it went supernova, and the rest was ejected during the explosion itself. Fast-moving winds of particles fly off from the neutron star, energising the dust and gas around it.