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Wednesday, 07 April 2021 14:39

The Crab Nebula (Tau A)

The Crab Nebula (Tau A)

Taurus A, famously known as the Crab Nebula, or Messier 001, is a supernova remnant (SNR) of the famous 1054 supernova, located in the constellation Taurus. The SNR was discovered by John Bevis in 1731. It was then independently observed by Charles Messier in 1758 and became the first object added to the Messier’s catalogue. It was reported by Chinese and other astronomers as a “new star” since it was visible to the naked eye. The supernova was visible in daylight for 23 days and for 2 years at night.   

 

The gaseous remnant, Taurus A, is located 6500 light-years away from Earth and scales to about 10 light-years. The nebula contains a pulsar; a rotating neutron star; at is very center. The Crab pulsar emits radiation in the visible, radio, gamma-ray, and X-ray spectra. It rotates about 30 times in one second.  

 

A Hubble image of the Crab Nebula in the visible light spectrum shows its intricate filamentous structure. The Crab pulsar is visible as a white dot in the center of the nebula in an X-ray image observed by Chandra X-ray Observatory. 

Caption: Hubble Space Telescope mosaic image of the Crab nebula

 

Taurus A was observed with the Sharjah 5m radio telescope at 1.4GHz on the 24th of March 2021. The bright 7x5 arcmin nebula is clearly visible as the white region in the radio map.   

Caption: Sharjah radio telescope radio image of the Crab nebula

Published in SAASST News
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