What links the USA's Independence Day holiday, the Crab Nebula and NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft? What links the American War of Independence with the planet Uranus? And what is the Fireworks Galaxy? Here's the story.

Cosmic 4th of July

On July 4, 1054 Chinese astronomers observed the ultimate in cosmic fireworks – a supernova! The remnant of this colossal explosion is known as the Crab Nebula and is also M1, the first entry in Messier's catalog of fuzzy sky objects.

This is an unusual image of the Crab Nebula. It's a false color image with data from three space observatories – Chandra, Hubble and Spitzer. They're able to view in different wavelengths, so this image is a comprehensive one. X-ray data is blue-white, optical data is purple, and infrared data is shown in pink.

The nebula was created from the material thrown out in the explosion. What remains of the core of the star itself is a pulsar, a neutron star spinning 30 times a second.

What a phenomenal photo - Crab Nebula.

4th of July greetings to the USA

Here's something from Astronomy Picture of the Day for today . . .

If you saw the dawn's early light from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station last Friday, June 29, then you could have seen this rocket's red glare. The single 277-second long exposure, made from the roof of NASA's Vehicle Assembly building, shows a predawn Falcon 9 launch, the rocket streaking eastward into the sky about 45 minutes before sunrise. At high altitude, its stage separation plume is brightly lit by the Sun still below the eastern horizon.

Image Credit & Copyright: Michael Seeley

This Hubble image of nebula NGC 3603 looks like fireworks going off. However what we're seeing is a cluster of hot young stars in the center surrounded by interstellar gas and dust, the material for making new stars. And we won't be hearing any big firework bangs from this - it's 20,000 light years away in the constellation Carina.

Beautiful. Another twinkle twinkle little star.

Holiday over. Back to work. (But the weekend is almost here!) And if you're missing the fireworks, here's a whole galaxy of them, NGC 6946, the Fireworks Galaxy. It's a beautiful face-on spiral galaxy about 10 million light years away in the constellation Cepheus. Since the early 20th century at least nine supernovae have been discovered in the galaxy.

Composite Image Data - Subaru Telescope (NAOJ) and Robert Gendler; Processing - Robert Gendler

Mona, the link is not working.

Angie, thanks for letting me know about the link. I managed to have an extra character in the URL which stopped it from working. It"s okay now.

natural and very safe "fireworks"