Todays pic is a great nebula piccy, originally covered by one of Event Horizon's posts when he did Pic Of The Day, this view is very different.
The Crab Nebula from VLT
The Crab Nebula, filled with mysterious filaments, is the result of a star that was seen to explode in 1054 AD. This spectacular supernova explosion was recorded by Chinese and (quite probably) Anasazi Indian astronomers. The filaments are mysterious because they appear to have less mass than expelled in the original supernova and higher speed than expected from a free explosion. In the above picture taken recently from a Very Large Telescope, the color indicates what is happening to the electrons in differentparts of the Crab Nebula. Red indicates the electrons are recombining with protons to form neutral hydrogen, while blue indicates the electrons are whirling around the magnetic field of the inner nebula. In the nebula's very center lies a pulsar: a neutron star rotating, in this case, 30 times a second.
A larger version of this piccy can be found here, this is a 838K Jpeg image. Although not much larger in size as far as actual dimensions go, it is of a much larger file size and the quality of the picture is much higher due to this.
Credit: FORS Team, 8.2-meter VLT, ESO
Previous Pic Of The Day posts
17th Sep 03
30th Aug 03
29th Aug 03 Courtesy of Biffa
(56K warning)
25th Aug 03
21st Aug 03
The Crab Nebula from VLT
The Crab Nebula, filled with mysterious filaments, is the result of a star that was seen to explode in 1054 AD. This spectacular supernova explosion was recorded by Chinese and (quite probably) Anasazi Indian astronomers. The filaments are mysterious because they appear to have less mass than expelled in the original supernova and higher speed than expected from a free explosion. In the above picture taken recently from a Very Large Telescope, the color indicates what is happening to the electrons in differentparts of the Crab Nebula. Red indicates the electrons are recombining with protons to form neutral hydrogen, while blue indicates the electrons are whirling around the magnetic field of the inner nebula. In the nebula's very center lies a pulsar: a neutron star rotating, in this case, 30 times a second.
A larger version of this piccy can be found here, this is a 838K Jpeg image. Although not much larger in size as far as actual dimensions go, it is of a much larger file size and the quality of the picture is much higher due to this.
Credit: FORS Team, 8.2-meter VLT, ESO
Previous Pic Of The Day posts
17th Sep 03
30th Aug 03
29th Aug 03 Courtesy of Biffa
(56K warning)25th Aug 03
21st Aug 03
