Sorry…. I’m hungry and so all I can think of (almost) is food. Before I see to that, and go see the movie “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang”, I thought I’d suggest the following. Since I mentioned a neutron star in a recent post (somewhere in the babble), why not pop over to Centauri Dreams and look at a larger version of the photo below, with commentary. ![hubble crab nebula]()
It is a Hubble space telescope image of the Crab Nebula, (mostly a light fluffy souffle of hydrogen gas) which contains within it a neutron star, left over from a supernova explosion that probably happened in the year 1054. Yes, a neutron star is a bit (a bit) like a giant nucleus…. it is a large collection of neutrons bound together by gravity (any protons that were present find it preferable to each aabsorb an electron and become a neutron in this situation)…. Normally, neutrons live happily with protons in a bound state which is very small…. the nuclei that make up the atoms that make us up, and other ordinary matter. A single nucleus is about 10^(-15) meters across. Tiny. A nuetron star is about 15-20 km…so 10^4 meters across. Way bigger.
I loved it when I first heard about them as a child. They were simply marvellous! Tell a child, maybe when you next meet one, about them some time. …My favourite factoid was that a teaspoon full of neutron star material would weigh over a billion tons here on earth. Paper weights for everybody!
-cvj
December 3rd, 2005 at 11:45 pm
You can see a very large image of this at
http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/screen/heic0515a.jpg
When you see all the detail in the large image, it almost appears to be … a fungus.
December 4th, 2005 at 8:03 am
These pictures are really awesome. Those filaments in the Crab Nebula…
December 4th, 2005 at 8:57 am
A Collapse Star?
http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/NumRel/RelUniverse2.html
Not much has changed since 1995, although the pictures are indeed quite spectacular. We see better. Do we understand the “gravitational waves” generated any better?
A more detailed look into the geometry happening from LIGO about the dynamics in a cosmological way? Increased computer storage capacities make this more feasible along side of, imaging deductions?
December 4th, 2005 at 1:11 pm
I like to use the Crab Nebula and the Orion Nebula as concrete examples of the death and birth of stars when I discuss stellar evolution to my Astro 100 (humanities) students. I think its handy that both are visible in the same region of the sky, so they can see the objects while on telescope/binocular field trips too. A handout of the basics, plus where they can find the objects (M1=Crab Nebula and M42=Orion Nebula in the chart) in the sky (Rome lat/lon.) can be downloaded here:
http://www.amara.com/CrabandOrion.pdf (2Mb)
P.S. those of you on the other side of the Atlantic, try to look up after sunset; the Moon (thin crescent) and Venus are especially lovely tonight.
December 4th, 2005 at 8:56 pm
Amara, you are so correct! They are fantastic… wish I had a telephoto on my digital camera…… Lovely. ….. I was actually going to mention somehitng similar a few weeks back concerning Jupiter, and decided against it…… but this is more classic.
Thanks
-cvj
December 14th, 2005 at 11:29 am
I guess one had to understand as well, the context within a “greater geometrical vision of things” within the comsological view?