PREVIEW

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and Chandra X-ray Observator have unveiled breathtaking new views of the Crab Nebula, revealing previously unseen details in combined images.
Nebulae are clouds of gas and dust, often formed from the remnants of dying or exploding stars. These clouds also serve as nurseries for new stars, providing essential materials for their formation. Astronomers estimate that the Milky Way alone contains tens of thousands of nebulae. Recently, JWST focused on a nearby one: the Crab Nebula, situated approximately 6,500 light-years away.
The Crab Nebula, the result of a supernova explosion recorded by Chinese and other astronomers in the year 1054, is 6,500 light-years from Earth. At its center is a neutron star, a super-dense object produced by the supernova. This neutron star, known as the Crab Pulsar, rotates about 30 times per second, its beam of radiation sweeping past Earth like a cosmic lighthouse.
As the young pulsar slows down, it injects large amounts of energy into its surroundings. A high-speed wind of matter and antimatter particles plows into the surrounding nebula, creating a shock wave that forms a visible ring. Jets from the pulsar's poles spew X-ray emitting particles perpendicular to this ring.
JWST's images highlight a small white dot at the center of the nebula: the Crab Pulsar. About 1,000 years ago, astronomers documented a supermassive star exploding in a supernova, ejecting its hot matter into space. The dense core that remained became the Crab Pulsar, now residing at the nebula's center.
A pulsar is a fast-rotating neutron star that energizes the surrounding gaseous material. JWST has captured this in stunning detail, revealing features that the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) could not when it observed the Crab Nebula in 2005. Hubble primarily observes in visible light, similar to human vision, and was unable to capture the faint, wispy charged particles that JWST has now shown in infrared light.
These charged particles move through the strong magnetic fields produced by the Crab Pulsar at nearly the speed of light, emitting synchrotron radiation—a powerful light sometimes used in X-ray imaging. The colorful tendrils in the image are remnants of the dead star, with ionized sulfur appearing reddish-orange, ionized iron showing as blue, and dust appearing greenish-yellow.
For the first time in 20 years, the Hubble Space Telescope will soon have a new image of the Crab Nebula for comparison - as NASA expects one to be taken within a year.