Dissecting the Crab Nebula : Big Pic

In this stunning image, the left-overs (or "remnants") of an explosion that happened in 1054 A.D. explosion can be seen. This cloud of dead star material is called the Crab Nebula. The cloud continues to expand nearly a thousand years after the event and NASA's "Great Observatories" have captured the whole thing.

Back in 1054 A.D., it was 12 years before the Battle of Hastings and the Norman conquest of England when a very bright explosion in the constellation of Taurus lit up the skies. In the Dark Ages, this was probably seen as an omen or some kind of supernatural occurrence, but astronomers were in fact treated to a very rare event: a supernova in our cosmic neighborhood, only 6,000 light-years away.

This particular supernova was caused when a massive star ran out of fuel to maintain nuclear fusion in the core. When this happened, heavier elements than hydrogen were burnt away -- like a wood fire that is fed coal when all the wood has run out. At a certain point, when the star had consumed all the fuel available, it puffed up into a hot, bloated, giant star.

As nuclear fusion slowed in the core of the star, the gravity of the entire star's mass overcame the outward pressure that the fusion processes created. The star started to collapse. Then, as if things couldn't get any worse for the dying star, a huge shockwave ripped through its body, releasing vast amounts of energy, exploding as a bright supernova.

NASA combined the observations from its Great Observatories -- the Chandra (X-rays), Spitzer (infrared) and Hubble (optical wavelengths) space telescopes -- to get one of the most detailed views of the Crab Nebula ever produced.

The blue light in the center of the nebula shows the location of superheated gas surrounding a neutron star. The spinning neutron star is blasting very high energy particles into space, producing X-rays. The highly structured red and yellow coloring is optical light and the purple is infrared emissions from the warm cloud of gas. Combining all these images provides us with an unprecedented view of this famous nebula.

Image credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/F.Seward; Optical: NASA/ESA/ASU/J.Hester & A.Loll; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. Minn./R.Gehrz.