蟹狀星雲
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Composite Crab
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Credit: NASA - X-ray: CXC, J.Hester (ASU) et al.;
5 ]" t8 P5 Q7 V) j2 g5 {6 m" tOptical: ESA, J.Hester and A.Loll (ASU); Infrared: JPL-Caltech, R.Gehrz (U. Minn)
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& B# g% I6 ~' b+ vExplanation:
' z5 _* }" B" _8 w3 O 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. ; p* |# r3 ^& J" r8 e7 z$ K0 l
2 m4 l3 u- R3 a/ p說明:8 D* r( E. w; S( k1 h _
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。5 W' Y$ a+ O2 p0 {9 Q
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資料來源: Scientific American
/ f! k5 | E$ Z' K1 a' G$ i. q* P Department of Physics, NCKU
