Stunning New View of Energetic Crab Pulsar

Fri Sep 20, 9:24 AM ET

By SPACE.com Staff, SPACE.com

Combining the power of the Hubble Space Telescope ( news - web sites) with the Chandra X-ray Observatory, researchers have made a short movie of a massive rotating star that provides new clues about how the powerful object works.

Scientists gathered data at different times over several months with the two orbiting observatories, examining the so-called Crab Nebula and its dense, Manhattan-sized pulsing neutron star. The rapidly spinning star generates incredible pulses of magnetic energy that scientists still struggle to understand.

"Through this movie, the Crab Nebula has come to life," said Jeff Hester of Arizona State University, lead author of a paper that describes the results in the Sept. 20 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. "We can see how this awesome cosmic generator actually works."

The Crab was first observed by Chinese astronomers in 1054 A.D. and has since become one of the most studied objects in the sky. The new images, combined into a movie, reveal details that hadn't been seen before, researchers said at a NASA ( news - web sites) press conference.

Even in a still image released today, bright wisps of material are seen moving out from the star at half the speed of light, forming an expanding ring seen in both optical and X-ray light.

The wisps seem to originate from a shock wave in the inner part of the ring, astronomers said. Within the shock wave, about two dozen knots brighten and fade in the movie. Outbursts generate expanding clouds of particles.

"These data leave little doubt that the inner X-ray ring is the location of the shock wave that turns the high-speed wind from the pulsar into extremely energetic particles," said Hester's colleague Koji Mori of Penn State University in University Park.

The movie also reveals a turbulent jet that lies perpendicular to the inner and outer rings. The jet emanates in two opposite directions, along the star's axis of rotation.

"The jet looks like steam from a high pressure boiler," said Penn State's David Burrows, who also participated in the study, "except when you realize you are looking at a stream of matter and anti-matter electrons moving at half the speed of light."

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