                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                               2023 November 9

                             M1: The Crab Nebula
    Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Tea Temim (Princeton University)

   Explanation: The Crab Nebula is cataloged as M1, the first object on
   Charles Messier's famous 18th century list of things which are not
   comets. In fact, the Crab is now known to be a supernova remnant,
   debris from the death explosion of a massive star witnessed by
   astronomers in the year 1054. This sharp image from the James Webb
   Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared
   Instrument) explores the eerie glow and fragmented strands of the still
   expanding cloud of interstellar debris in infrared light. One of the
   most exotic objects known to modern astronomers, the Crab Pulsar, a
   neutron star spinning 30 times a second, is visible as a bright spot
   near the nebula's center. Like a cosmic dynamo, this collapsed remnant
   of the stellar core powers the Crab's emission across the
   electromagnetic spectrum. Spanning about 12 light-years, the Crab
   Nebula is a mere 6,500 light-years away in the head-strong
   constellation Taurus.

                          Tomorrow's picture: UHZ1
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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