BLAST SCENE
DEEP IN THE HEART of the Crab Nebula lies a highly mag-
netized, rapidly rotating neutron star that was produced
when a massive star exploded as a supernova in the year- This multiwavelength image reveals the debris from
the blast: x-rays are shown in purple, ultraviolet light in blue,
visible in green, infrared in yellow and radio light in red. The
x-ray emission, closest to the neutron star, is dominated by
light released by charged particles that were accelerated to
high energies by the star’s rotation.
X-RAY: NASA, CXC AND SAO; OPTICAL: NASA AND STSCI; INFRARED: NASA, JPL AND CALTECH; RADIO: NSF,
NRAO AND VLA; ULTRAVIOLET: ESA AND XMM-NEWTON
© 2019 Scientific American