Date: July 4, 1054 AD.
At dawn, Chinese astronomers and cave artists from the Anasazi and Mimbres tribes, half a world away in the desert region of what is now the southwest United States, gazed into the eastern sky. All these ancient people knew the sky. I knew all the stars like old friends. But suddenly, here before them, near the thin waning crescent moon, a dazzling star shone, the likes of which no one had ever seen before. And what a star he was!
As for the brightness, it seemed at least several times brighter at first. Venus It remained easily visible against the clear blue daytime sky for 23 days, until it slowly began to darken. It was visible to the naked eye for a total of 653 days, and eventually became completely invisible. The Chinese called such stars “guest stars.” Because stars come for a while and then leave.
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Fortunately, those who observed this strange object almost a thousand years ago carefully recorded its position in the sky. full moon It is located northwest of the star’s tip, known as Zeta Tauri, and marks the star’s southern corner. Taurus the bull.
brilliant planet Jupiter I’m not far from that spot in the sky right now.
And today, when we look at the position of that strange guest star, it’s a fuzzy patch of stardust with tentacles of incandescent gas rapidly moving outward in all directions from where the star was literally blown away. I can see.
What a devastating explosion this must have been!
Related: The iconic Crab Nebula shines in gorgeous views from the James Webb Space Telescope (video, images)
devastating explosion
Some star explosions are not so large, but this one was completely destructive and changed the entire nature of the star. Today we call it supernovafrom Latin Stella Nova or “new star”. However, this star was far from a rising star and could more appropriately be described as a dying star, reaching the end of his career.
A typical nova can sustain a huge expenditure of energy for some time, and then return to its original state of obscurity. At the peak of its eruption, the star sheds its outer layers and increases in brightness by a factor of about 50,000 or more. I’ve also seen cases like this. star that have undergone such distortion Multiple times.
But there is no second chance for a supernova.
In the case of the 1054 guest star, a star with at least 10 times the mass of the Sun appears to have instantly converted most of its mass into radiant energy. The bursting star suddenly burst into flames, emitting a brightness that was perhaps as bright as 400 billion suns.
the people here are earth The star was seen blown away in 1054, and its position is now known to be approximately 6,500 degrees. light years From us. So, in reality, this incredible explosion actually happened around 5446 BC, and it took about 6,300 years for the light from that explosion to finally reach us.
leftover stardust
In its aftermath, nothing remained except the newly revealed extremely hot star’s core and the expanding cloud of gaseous debris that we today call a “star.” crab nebula. At this point, the material ejected by the supernova has spread out over a volume about 10 light-years in diameter and, incredibly, is still expanding outward at a very fast rate of about 1,100 miles (1,800 km) per second.
The first person to see this crab was John Beavis, a British physician and amateur astronomer, in 1731. And on September 12, 1758, charles messier recorded what he explained
“…a nebula above the southern corner. Taurus . . . Stars not included. It is a whitish light, elongated like a tapered flame, and was discovered during observations of a comet in 1758. ”
In fact, the Crab Nebula’s resemblance to a telescope comet prompted Messier to compile his famous catalog of such obscure objects so as not to fool others. comet Hunters. The Crab Nebula is known as M (Mesier) 1 because it is first on his list. The nickname “Crab Nebula” comes from a sketch of it made in 1844 by the British astronomer, 3rd Earl of Ross.
where can i find it
To see the Crab Nebula for yourself, you’ll have to wait until it rises high enough above the east-northeast horizon until about midnight local daylight savings time. Also, although planetary nebulae are relatively bright as they visually advance, you will need access to a dark, clear sky. size The +8.4 crab unfortunately tends to get lost in the background lighting in light-polluted locations.
It may be barely visible as a dim light blur with almost no features. good binoculars. It is more easily detected in a 3-inch telescope, and begins to appear as an irregular oval in a telescope with an aperture of 6 inches or larger. However, you can see some wavy edges. Because of the delicate outer filament-like structure that gives it its name, it requires a much larger telescope, starting at about 16 inches in aperture. Only then, and only under excellent sky conditions, do we get hints of filaments and fine structure. nebula You’ll start to see it.
turn quickly
In November 1968, the core of an exploded star was the source of the material discovered in the Crab Nebula. pulsar; rotate rapidly neutron starit rotates at an astonishing speed of about 33 times per second. Apparently, stars have “hot spots” on their surfaces that emit energy in almost every part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Therefore, as it pivots around its axis, it appears to be “pulsating” from our ground perspective. Although this pulsar is only a fraction of the size of the Sun, it must be extremely dense in nature. Equivalent to compression and compaction solar mass With a volume of only 50 miles/30 kilometers in diameter.
If just one teaspoon of this material could somehow be transported to Earth, it would likely weigh hundreds of tons.
Still waiting for the next one
One last thing worth mentioning for future reference. That means spectacular supernovae within our galaxy are extremely rare events. In 1987, a supernova exploded that was visible to the naked eye. large magellanic cloudour satellite galaxy milky way. Unfortunately, the supernova, located 190,000 light-years away, did not appear brighter than a 4th magnitude star to our eyes.
But in the past 1,000 years, four truly dazzling supernovae have been recorded in our galaxy. There is a record of a brilliant supernova that appeared in the constellation Lupus in 1006. Incredibly, the explosion may have been comparable to the one that occurred in 1054.
when and where to watch
another Supernova of 1572 It flared up in the constellation Queen Cassiopeia and was widely observed by Danish astronomers. Tycho Brahe. Yet another appeared in 1604. time in the constellation of OphiuchusSerpent Holder. Unfortunately, this last supernova appearance occurred just a few years before the telescope was invented. Since then, no other such dazzler has appeared in our skies. One must believe that we have been waiting for others for a long time.
Maybe tonight will be that night.
Joe Rao is an instructor and guest lecturer at New York University. Hayden Planetarium. he writes about astronomy natural history magazine, farmers yearbook and other publications.
Joe Rao is an instructor and guest lecturer at New York University. Hayden Planetarium. he writes: astronomy for natural history magazine, farmers yearbook and other publications.
