Creation crustacean of the
Thanks to the meticulous note-taking of ancient stargazers, astronomers today are able to pinpoint when this familiar object first appeared
In the year 1054 astronomers from various countries reported the appearance of a ‘new star’ in the night sky; something that must have been quite a shock to those keeping a regular eye on the heavens. This celestial newcomer is now thought to have been the exploding star – or supernova – that created the Crab Nebula.
This new image of the nebula was taken in X-ray, optical and infrared to reveal a luminous, wispy object with a defined structure.
The Crab Nebula is a ‘supernova remnant’; a region of gas left over from that ancient stellar explosion. It is illuminated by a type of star known as a pulsar, formed when an aging star collapses as it runs out of fuel to create a bright, rapidly spinning object.
There’s a lesson to be learned from the Crab Nebula: keep a note of what you see in the night sky, as your observations could be a big help to astronomers scouring the skies centuries from now.
Orion’s stellar nursery
ATACAMA LARGE MILLIMETER/ SUBMILLIMETER ARRAY, VERY LARGE TELESCOPE, 7 MARCH 2018
This composite image of part of the Orion Nebula shows red, wispy filaments of cold gas, invisible to the human eye but not to the power of modern telescopes. Stars are born in regions like this when pockets of gas collapse under gravity, compress and form protostars. This is true of the Trapezium Cluster, the collection of blue-white stars in the upper left, which formed out of the surrounding nebula.
Artistic observations
MATISSE INSTRUMENT, VERY LARGE TELESCOPE INTERFEROMETER, 5 MARCH 2018
The name of the new instrument at ESO’s Paranal Observatory is appropriate, considering the beautiful colours produced during its first observations. MATISSE analyses light from the regions around young stars, where planets are forming. This data was collected during infrared observations of the star Sirius, so does not reflect what would be seen with the human eye.
Feeding funnel
HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE, 12 MARCH 2018 It’s easy to see why NGC 1015 is called a ‘barred spiral galaxy’, given the huge bar of stars and gas cutting through its centre. Bar structures are thought to exist in around two thirds of spiral galaxies, including the Milky Way. Astronomers believe these bars funnel gas and energy from the galaxy’s arms to its core, feeding the supermassive black hole at its centre.
A relic of the Universe
HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE, 19 MARCH 2018
The centre galaxy in this image is NGC 1277, a lenticular galaxy located about 220 million lightyears from Earth that is about 12 billion years old. Given that the Big Bang is thought have occurred 13.8 billion years ago, this makes NGC 1277 a true relic of the cosmos.
A rose in the clouds
JUNO SPACECRAFT, 7 FEBRUARY 2018 A raging storm in Jupiter’s northern hemisphere looks rather like a rose in this image taken by the NASA Juno spacecraft. It shows just how close the Juno mission is getting to the gas giant, helping scientists on Earth learn the secrets hidden beneath the surface. This image was taken a mere 12,000km above the cloud tops.