Sharmila Kuthunur is a Seattle-based science journalist covering astronomy, astrophysics and space exploration. Follow her on X @skuthunur.
In July 1504, astronomers in China documented a"guest star" in the sky that shone as brightly as Jupiter for nearly a month before gradually fading into invisibility.
That"star" was, in fact, a cloud of debris blown into space by a dying star roughly 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. In the 19th century, Irish astronomer Lord Rosse named the curious object thetraces those"claws" in fresh, exquisite detail.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope dissected the Crab Nebula’s structure, aiding astronomers as they continue to evaluate leading theories about the supernova remnant’s origins.
Ever since it exploded as a supernova, the star's shell of material has been expanding at some 900 miles every second and now spans about 11 light-years across. The Crab Nebula is a well-studied object thanks to its cosmic closeness, yet despite decades of observations, the specifics of the explosion have remained elusive.
Like most massive stars toward the end of their lives, the star at the heart of the Crab Nebula may have kickstarted its death when it began to churn out iron. Unlike other elements produced during— the process that powers stars, which fusing hydrogen into heavier elements — iron demands more energy than it releases, meaning the star ended up succumbing to its own gravity and collapsing onto itself.
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