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Space movie reveals shocking secrets of the crab pulsar
by NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. Contact: Steve Roy
Just when it seemed like the summer movie season had ended, two of
NASA's great observatories have produced their own action movie. Multiple
observations made over several months with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory
and the Hubble Space Telescope captured the spectacle of matter and
antimatter propelled to near the speed of light by the Crab pulsar, a
rapidly rotating neutron star the size of Manhattan.
"Through this movie, the Crab Nebula has come to life," said Jeff
Hester of Arizona State University in Tempe, lead author of a paper in the
September 20th 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. By
combining the power of both Chandra and Hubble, the movie reveals features
never seen in still images. By understanding the Crab, astronomers hope to
unlock the secrets of how similar objects across the universe are powered.
Bright wisps can be seen moving outward at half the speed of light
to form an expanding ring that is visible in both X-ray and optical images.
These wisps appear to originate from a shock wave that shows up as an inner
X-ray ring. This ring consists of about two-dozen knots that form, brighten
and fade, jitter around, and occasionally undergo outbursts that give rise
to expanding clouds of particles, but remain in roughly the same location.
"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 Koji Mori of Penn State University
in University Park, a coauthor of the paper.
Another dramatic feature of the movie is a turbulent jet that lies
perpendicular to the inner and outer rings. Violent internal motions are
obvious, as is a slow motion outward into the surrounding nebula of
particles and magnetic field.
"The jet looks like steam from a high pressure boiler," said David
Burrows of Penn State, another coauthor of the paper. "Except when you
realize you are looking at a stream of matter and anti-matter electrons
moving at half the speed of light!"
The inner region of the Crab Nebula around the pulsar was observed
with Hubble on 24 occasions between August 2000 and April 2001 at 11-day
intervals, and with Chandra on eight occasions between November 2000 and
April 2001. The Crab was observed with Chandra's Advanced CCD Imaging
Spectrometer and Hubble's Wide-Field Planetary Camera.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages
the Chandra program, and TRW, Inc., Redondo Beach, Calif., is the prime
contractor. The Smithsonian's Chandra X-ray Center controls science and
flight operations from Cambridge, Mass. The Space Telescope Science
Institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in
Astronomy, Inc. (AURA), for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space
Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of
international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).
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