蟹狀星雲
) P( |6 M6 H) YComposite Crab
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" ^2 U- d# P4 t( k: ^Credit: NASA - X-ray: CXC, J.Hester (ASU) et al.;
% Q, P9 c5 U/ I' ~! M( n3 S4 pOptical: ESA, J.Hester and A.Loll (ASU); Infrared: JPL-Caltech, R.Gehrz (U. Minn)
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5 Y. T Y) a' h/ K2 GExplanation: 7 J- a B) O, y+ U7 N( M
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. 2 W1 ^, P8 \: p! F. g
8 Q3 i! e* T5 j說明:. r s1 P( l" M! b
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。7 u6 N! ?9 G* c
8 ~$ t7 g$ Z1 J0 b+ ]6 N* ~0 `資料來源: Scientific American
7 J6 m) N7 G% z. [0 P Department of Physics, NCKU
