Friday, October 7, 2011

Stairway to heaven

Here are 4 views from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and a link to a video. It is amazing the differing structures associated with different wavelengths. The Crab Nebula was caused by a SuperNova in 1054, that people living then reported lit up the sky as a star in the daytime. It is located in the Taurus Constellation. The most recent research of the nebula show that it is giving off Gamma rays of 100 billion electron-volts. The highest radiation that the known physics can account for the Pulsar, the angular momentum of the spinning magnetic field, is about 10 Billion ElectronVolts. One of these Gamma ray has the energy to ionize 7 Billion Hydrogen Atoms. The reason I post this is because I saw the pulse from the Nebula, a huge blink of energy, less than a second, but unlike any light I have ever seen, a distinctly round orb about 20 times the size of Jupiters starlight. I would describe what I saw like as looking at the pulsar itself, a huge magnification of the dense spinning pulsar 6500 light years away, which is only a few miles across but contains 1.4 times the mass of our sun. Awesome. Link to news article http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/227030/20111007/crab-nebula-pulsar-gamma-rays-100-billion-electron-volts-veritas-100-gev-crab-system.htm