page_title: Nebulae in fiction
section_title: Crab Nebula
hierarchical_section_title: Nebulae in fiction / Real nebulae in fiction / Crab Nebula
caption_attribution_description: English: This is a mosaic image, one of the largest ever taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope of the Crab Nebula, a six-light-year-wide expanding remnant of a star's supernova explosion. Japanese and Chinese astronomers recorded this violent event nearly 1,000 years ago in 1054, as did, almost certainly, Native Americans. The orange filaments are the tattered remains of the star and consist mostly of hydrogen. The rapidly spinning neutron star embedded in the center of the nebula is the dynamo powering the nebula's eerie interior bluish glow. The blue light comes from electrons whirling at nearly the speed of light around magnetic field lines from the neutron star. The neutron star, like a lighthouse, ejects twin beams of radiation that appear to pulse 30 times a second due to the neutron star's rotation. A neutron star is the crushed ultra-dense core of the exploded star. The Crab Nebula derived its name from its appearance in a drawing made by Irish astronomer Lord Rosse in 1844, using a 36-inch telescope. When viewed by Hubble, as well as by large ground-based telescopes such as the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, the Crab Nebula takes on a more detailed appearance that yields clues into the spectacular demise of a star, 6,500 light-years away. The newly composed image was assembled from 24 individual Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 exposures taken in October 1999, January 2000, and December 2000. The colors in the image indicate the different elements that were expelled during the explosion. Blue in the filaments in the outer part of the nebula represents neutral oxygen, green is singly-ionized sulfur, and red indicates doubly-ionized oxygen. Français&#160;: Cette image, une des plus grandes de la Nébuleuse du Crabe jamais prises par le télescope spatial Hubble de la NASA, est en réalité une mosaïque de plusieurs clichés. La nébuleuse s'étend sur une distance de six années-lumière et est composée des restes de l'explosion d'une supernova. Les astronomes chinois et japonais ont observé cette violente explosion il y a environ un millénaire, en 1054, comme l'ont certainement également fait les indiens d'Amérique. Les filaments oranges sont les restes en lambeaux de l'étoile et se composent principalement d'hydrogène. L'étoile à neutrons qui tourne rapidement sur elle-même, intégrée dans le centre de la nébuleuse, est la dynamo alimentant l'intérieur de la nébuleuse de l'étrange lueur bleuâtre. La lumière bleue provient des électrons tourbillonnant presque à la vitesse de la lumière autour de lignes du champ magnétique de l'étoile à neutrons. L'étoile à neutrons, comme un phare, émet des faisceaux de rayonnements jumeaux qui semblent battre 30 fois par seconde en raison de la rotation de l'étoile à neutrons. Une étoile à neutrons est le noyau écrasé ultra-dense de l'étoile qui a explosé. L'image est formée de l'assemblage de 24 prises individuelles de la Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 datant d'octobre 1999, janvier 2000 et décembre 2000. Les couleurs de l'image indiquent les différents éléments qui ont été expulsé lors de l'explosion. Le bleu dans les filaments de la partie extérieure de la nébuleuse représente l'oxygène neutre, le vert est le souffre ionisé I, et le rouge indique l'oxygène ionisé II. العربية: هذه الصورة المركبة, هي واحدة من أكبر الصور على الإطلاق التي التقطها تلسكوب هبل لسديم السرطان, وهو بقايا مستعر أعظم تمتد على مساحة قطرها 6 سنوات ضوئية. قام الفلكيون القدماء العرب والصينيون بتسجيل هذا الحدث قبل 1,000 عام في سنة 1054م, كما فعل ذلك البحارة الأمريكيون (بالرغم من أنه ليس من المؤكد تماماً أن ما سجلوه هو هذا). الخيوط البرتقالية الظاهرة في الصورة هي أشلاء وشظايا متبقّية من النجم الذي انفجر (وكوّن السديم) وهي تتركب بشكل رئيسي من الهيدروجين. النجم النيوتروني سريع "الدوران المحوري" المتواري في وسط السديم يَعمل كمولد طاقة يُسبب البريق المُزرقّ الغريب المُشع من وسط السديم. وهذا الضوء الأزرق قادم من إلكترونات تدور بما يُقارب سرعة الضوء حول الحقل المغناطيسي للنجم النيوتروني. النجم النيوتروني, مثل المنارة, يُطلق شعاعين من الضوء في اتجاهين مختلفين يَجعلناه يبدو كأنه ينبض 30 مرة في الثانية نتيجة لدورانه المحوري السريع (النجوم النيوترونية تُتم بضعة دورات حول نفسها في الثانية على الأقل). والنجم النيوتروني هو نواة مسحوقة شديدة الكثافة لنجم انفجر. هذه الصورة المركبة رُكّبت من 24 صورة بعضها التطقت في تشرين الأول (أكتوبر) 1999, وكانون الثاني (يناير) 2000, وكانون الأول (ديسمبر) 2000. الألوان في الصورة تدل على عناصر مختلفة قذفت أثناء الانفجار. اللون الأزرق في الشعيرات في الجزء الخارجي من السديم هو لأكسجين طبيعي, والأخضر لكبريت متأين فردياً, والأحمر لأكسجين متأين.
context_page_description: Nebulae, often being visually interesting astronomical objects, are frequently used as settings or backdrops for works of science fiction.
context_section_description: Supernova remnant cataloged as M1. The Crab Nebula is the residue of supernova SN 1054, which also left a neutron star, the Crab Pulsar, at its center (see graphic). The nebula's spattered, explosive appearance has stimulated several authors to imagine the purposeful destruction of its progenitor star by one or another race of aliens.
  "First Contact" (1945), novelette by Murray Leinster published in Astounding Science Fiction. In this puzzle story, a human exploration vessel encounters a like alien craft in the vicinity of the Crab Nebula. Neither ship knows the location or even the direction of the other's home planet, but they can be sure it is far away from the recently (in cosmic terms) sterilized neighborhood of the Crab.
  "Colony in Space" (1971), serial written by Malcolm Hulke for the television series Doctor Who. The Doctor and his companion Jo are dispatched by a committee of Time Lords to the planet Uxarieus (see graphic) to investigate indirect evidence of an attempt to resurrect an ancient doomsday device. On Uxarieus, the Doctor encounters a three-way battle between farmers, miners, and autochthonous "primitives"—and also his nemesis the Master, who reveals to the Doctor that the primitives were once an advanced civilization. Before their collapse, they built a super weapon capable of projecting antimatter at superluminal speed—a weapon the Master now covets for himself. The device was so powerful that in a test firing at a nearby star, it triggered the supernova that created the Crab Nebula.
  Colossus and the Crab (1977), third novel in the Colossus trilogy by Dennis Feltham Jones. Martians—possessed of vast intellect, powers of transformation and telepathy—appear unexpectedly on the Earth. Having immobilized the Colossus computer system that handles humanity's affairs, they make a startling demand: half the world's oxygen, to be transported to their own small globe. Only oxygen can shield Mars (as well as the Earth) against a deadly storm of "Gammarad Six" radiation due to arrive from the novel's eponymous Crab Nebula. Furious maneuvering and increasingly violent skirmishing follow this demand until finally the original Colossus mainframe brokers a peace between the sides, with the sweetener thrown in that humanity will be able to retreat to Mars once the Sun becomes a red giant and destroys the Earth—true long term planning that only Colossus would have conceived of.
  Battle of the Planets (1978-1985), American version of the Japanese television program Gatchaman, directed by David Hanson and Alan Dinehart. The five youthful protagonists of G-Force protect Earth from the evil planet Spectra and its villainous, masked commander Zoltar, and from assorted collateral attacks out of the depths of space. Spectra is the name of both the planet, located near the center of the Crab Nebula, and of the ruthless organization it heads, a nemesis to the Federation of Peaceful Planets (which includes the Earth, Arcturus and Vega). The minions of this ancient world, which is slowly dying in the sterilized wastes of the nebula, will stop at nothing to pillage the Earth of its rich natural resources and enslave its inhabitants.
  Psion (1982), Telepathic Cat series novel written by Joan D. Vinge. Talhassium, element 170, occurs as a blue-silver crystal that is an essential component of massively miniaturized computer systems—so potent that a fist-sized chunk can host a planetary information web. It is also: an element so rare that it is almost impossible to find outside the heart of a star ... [but mankind] needs it by the kiloton to make its new faster-than-light stardrive cheap and simple. Galactic civilization can only flower once the planet Cinder, an almost solid mass of talhassium ore forged in the crucible of supernova SN 1054, is discovered in orbit around the Crab Pulsar. Psion, first published as a juvenile, is a mythic story patterned into a world that is only superficially sciencefictional, strongly in the tradition established by Andre Norton. Talhassium bears a significant resemblance to the element Illyrion that
caption: The Crab Nebula, residue of supernova SN 1054.
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "3864", "Image ImageLength": "3864", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image Compression": "LZW", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image PlanarConfiguration": "1", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2005:11:28 11:37:55", "Image ExifOffset": "252", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "390", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9119", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3864", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3864"}