How does a city-sized neutron star power the vast
Crab Nebula?
The expulsion of wisps of hot gas at high speeds appears
to be at least part of the answer.
Yesterday
time-lapse movies taken from both the
Chandra X-ray Observatory
and the
Hubble Space Telescope
were
released showing a wisp of gas moving
out at about half the speed of light.
Wisps like this likely result from tremendous
electric voltages created by the central pulsar, a rapidly rotating, magnetized, central
neutron star. The hot
plasma strikes existing gas, causing it glow in colors across the
electromagnetic spectrum.
Pictured above is a composite image of the
center of the Crab Nebula
where red represents
radio emission, green represents
visible emission,
and blue represents
X-ray emission.
The dot at the very center is the hot
pulsar
spinning 30 times per second.
Text: APOD
Credit:
J. Hester
(
ASU),
CXC,
HST,
NRAO,
NSF,
NASA