Nebulae - The Most Beautiful Places in the Universe

September 20, 2020

By: Haris Ahmad

Nebulae are giant clouds of gas and dust in space. Some of them may have formed due to the explosion of stars into supernovae. Nebulae are the regions where stars form and the Sun is also formed from the elementary particles in a Nebula.  

In this series, I will highlight some of the most beautiful and attractive Nebulae. There are countless Nebulae in the universe with some visible to the naked eye in a clear night sky as well.  

The first Nebula I’ll talk about is one which you may have seen or heard about before. This Nebula is known as the Crab Nebula. It is also known as Messier 1.

https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso9948f/

It is an expanding remnant of a Supernova that has a Pulsar at its center. I have explained what a Pulsar is in one of my previous blogs. The Crab Nebula is located in the northern region of constellation Taurus. It is approximately 6500 light-years away from us. This Nebula is more than 75,000 times luminous than our Sun. The Supernova explosion that resulted in the creation of the Crab Nebula is known as SN 1054 since it was observed by Chinese Astronomers in 1054 A.D. The diameter of this beautiful Nebula is approximately 11 light-years across and is expanding at the speed of 1500 km per second.  

The Pulsar at the center on the Crab Nebula is known as the Crab Pulsar which is approximately 20 to 30 km across. It is a rapidly rotating neutron star that spins at a rate of almost 30 times per second.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_Pulsar

The explosion of the star that formed the Nebula has produced a large shell of elements that still exist in the Nebula. However, this Nebula will eventually disappear and the fragments will be dispersed into space nearby.  

This Nebula was discovered in 1731 by an Astronomer named John Bewis. However, later, Astronomer Charles Messier discovered it independently in 1758 while looking for Halley’s Comet, which was predicted to return that year.