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Watch the Crab Nebula Expand Over a 13 Year Period

Posted by timothy on from the imagine-the-world's-largest-crab-rangoon dept.

The Bad Astronomer writes "A thousand years ago, the light from the explosion of a massive star reached the Earth. We now call this supernova remnant the Crab Nebula, and a new image of the Crab taken by astronomer Adam Block shows the physical expansion of the debris, made obvious in a short video comparing his 2012 observations with some taken in 1999. The outward motion of filaments and knots in the material can be easily traced even over this relatively short time baseline."

2 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. Bad comparison. by EkriirkE · · Score: 3, Informative

    The second "larger" image was processed differently - more lightening of the dark end & over exposed. All the stars bloom in the new image as they've been enhanced stronger than the older image. Granted the internal filaments did move slightly, there is cheating to make it look more pronounced.

    --
    from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
    to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
  2. Of course, but... by Gavin+Scott · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ignore the parts that are differently visible and the color differences, and focus on the parts that are the same in both images.

    You'll see that the elements from the earlier photo have moved away from the center of the nebula and this is visible relative to all the background stars.

    G.