One of the best-known Hubble Space Telescope images is of the
Crab Nebula (M1) The image highlights the filaments of the expanding nebula which is a supernova remnant. The supernova explosion was recorded by Chinese astronomers (and others) nearly a thousand years ago.
Yesterday they released a new image and it features the neutron star at the heart of the nebula, the remains of the massive star after the explosion. (If you're interesting in finding out more,
Death of a Massive Star tells the story.)
The
new Hubble image of the Crab Nebula was made by combining three high-resolution images. To find the neutron star, look for pair of bright stars just to the right of center. It's the right-hand one of the pair.
This amazing object has a mass about that of the Sun, but is a sphere about 32 km (20 mi) across. It's also spinning about 30 times a second (wow!). A Hubble press release says,
The rapid motion of the material nearest to the star is revealed by the subtle rainbow of colors in this time-lapse image, the rainbow effect being due to the movement of material over the time between one image and another.
As it spins it gives out bursts of radio waves - they come in pulses like the light from a lighthouse. This type of neutron star is called a pulsar.