- Crab Star-death Nebula
Crab Star-death Nebula
Long before the invention of the telescope, on July 4th, 1054 CE a second Sun appeared in the sky. As documented by Chinese astronomers this star shined as bright as a full Moon but from a light source no bigger than other bright stars in the sky. This made it visible in the daytime for 23 days and the brightest thing in the sky for several months eventually disappearing to human eyes after 2 years and never seen again, until the debris field was rediscovered in 1731 by Telescope. We now know that this was a supernova event where a huge star ran out of fuel and exploded. Only 2 things can survive these most horrific types of star deaths, a neutron star, or a black hole. Stellar Black holes seem to only happen after the largest types of stars undergo core collapse. The core left behind when this star imploded, was a fast spinning neutron star known as a pulsar.
In astronomy visual texture is everything. To the untrained eye one cloudy object pretty much looks like the next. However, supernova star-death nebulae are easy to recognized by their stringy texture. These arcing filaments are the shock waves from the original explosion expanding outward, piling up the trace amounts of hydrogen found everywhere in the Universe, muck like a snowplow pushing snow. Though unlike snow hydrogen gas is only visible when it is extremely energized and riding a supernova shockwave will do that.
One of the reasons you might want to add this Dark Ranger Telescope Astro Art to your collection is as a reminder that no matter how bad of day you are having, it could be worse, your star could have exploded.