APOD 3.7

This weeks picture is of the crab nebula taken by the hubble space telescope. The crab nebula is about 10 light years wide and rotates almost 30 times every second. It is the remains of a supernova that was apparently seen(not really sure by who) in 1045 AD. The filaments in this explosion are unknown and complex and appear to have less mass than expelled in the original supernova. No radio emission was detected from an extended source outside the Crab Nebula. Scientist say that its pretty safe to say that there is no shell in exsistance aound the nebula and the brightness of the crab is at the very least 2 magnitudes below the faintest shell-type supernova known. Another interesting fact about the nebula is that at the center or relatively close to the center that is, is a pulsar which is a netron star that has as much mass as the sun but is actually only the size of a small town.