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                           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.   
      
                                 2021 December 24   
      
                                M1: The Crab Nebula   
                     Image Credit & Copyright: Michael Sherick   
      
      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, ground-based telescopic view   
      combines broadband color data with narrowband data that tracks emission   
      from ionized sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms to explore the tangled   
      filaments within the still expanding cloud. 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 constellation Taurus.   
      
                       Tomorrow's picture: A Christmas Comet   
        __________________________________________________________________   
      
          Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)   
               NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.   
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                                & Michigan Tech. U.   
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