蟹狀星雲 : }2 Q4 o5 r7 KComposite Crab - M/ c8 V5 I. A) {( H/ T! [2 }
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' N; B/ Z( g5 u) `Credit: NASA - X-ray: CXC, J.Hester (ASU) et al.; 3 }' E* m) \' D2 `/ L" U" x, R
Optical: ESA, J.Hester and A.Loll (ASU); Infrared: JPL-Caltech, R.Gehrz (U. Minn) 9 f2 U, ?' W1 X- G 3 y: S: e9 F$ AExplanation: $ O9 K; q7 l+ v/ W5 P* b3 k
The Crab Nebula is cataloged as M1, the first object on Charles Messier's famous list of things which are not comets. In fact, the Crab is now known to be a supernova remnant, expanding debris from the death explosion of a massive star. This intriguing false-color image combines data from space-based observatories, Chandra, Hubble, and Spitzer, to explore the debris cloud in x-rays (blue-purple), optical (green), and infrared (red) light. One of the most exotic objects known to modern astronomers, the Crab Pulsar, a neutron star spinning 30 times a second, is the bright spot near picture 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 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. : X% v5 l! a/ r) S9 Y. Y, v" z' Q1 e! b" k5 _* k
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蟹狀星雲的編錄是M1，也就是梅西葉著名的「非彗星型錄」的第一個天體。現在我們知道蟹狀星雲是一個超新星遺骸--大質量恆星死亡爆炸所產生的擴張碎片雲。這幅有趣的假色影像，組合了來自錢卓拉、哈伯和史匹哲等太空天文望遠鏡的數據，在X射線 (藍-紫)、可見光 (綠)和紅外光 (紅)波段探索這團宇宙碎片雲。星雲中心附近的亮斑是蟹狀星雲波霎，為一顆每轉自轉30次的中子星，是現代天文學家公認最奇特的天體之一。就像一個宇宙級的發電機，這顆恆星核崩塌所產生的遺骸，是蟹狀星雲發出各種電磁波段輻射的能量源。蟹狀星雲位在金牛座內，離我們約有6,500光年遠，大小約有12光年。 : q9 |3 G9 \1 y5 p4 E$ | ) M v9 n: X' g- I" D& I資料來源: Scientific American g" e0 U3 d: c" Y; F Department of Physics, NCKU
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