Chandra image shows a powerful connection in the Crab Nebula
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Right: The powerhouse lighting up the Crab Nebula is a pulsar too tiny to be resolved even with Chandra's remarkable telescope. It's located at the tip of the yellow arrow where astronomers added a white spot for visibility. The red arrow points to the ring of hot material encircling the pulsar and apparently connecting the Crab to the nebula surrounding it. Credit: NASA and Chandra Science Center.
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"We have another treat for you today from Chandra," said Dr. Alan Bunner Science Director of NASA's Structure & Evolution of the Universe program as he started with an understatement. Since its launch on July 10, the Chandra X-ray Observatory has been undergoing a series of checkouts and warm-up exercises. Several of those have produced striking images that intrigue and entice scientists even though the images warrant further study.
Chandra's "first light" images by its Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) showed striking details of the Cas A supernova remnant and of a distant quasar. These hinted at marvelous details that could be pried from the rest of the universe. On Tuesday, Chandra delivered again as with an image of the Crab Nebula taken by ACIS and the High-Energy Transmission Grating (HETG).
"This is another fabulous discovery from Chandra," said Dr. Martin Weisskopf, the Chandra project scientist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. "Since its launch, Chandra has really amazed us as each new calibration has brought us a new result."
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In its image of the Crab, Chandra revealed a ring of hot gas that may be the extension cord connecting the neutron star at the heart of the Crab to the brilliant nebula surrounding it.
"It seems that we are seeing the glowing power conduit that connects the two," said Dr. Mark Hester of the University of Arizona.
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In visible light, the Crab looks like its namesake. This is partly from the supernova's shock waves running into uneven pockets of gas and dust between stars. But much of its glow is from synchrotron radiation, so-named for manmade particle accelerators where the phenomenon was discovered.
Right: More powerful than ConEdison and all the other utility companies put together is the pulsar-as-dynamo at the center of the Crab Nebula. While it looks big compared to New York City, it's far too small to be resolved by any telescopes now in use. While no one knows if a neutron star is dark gray, the sunlight glaring off it probably is real since the star's intense gravity would make it the smoothest object in the universe. Links to
The driving force behind that magnetic field is at ground zero in the Crab: a neutron star about 20 km wide but as massive as our Sun, and spinning at 33 rpm. Its magnetic field was is another remnant that was frozen in when the star that became the Crab imploded.
"The ultimate power source is a spinning magnetized neutron star too small to be seen even by Chandra," said Dr. Malvin Ruderman of Columbia University. He said that it is similar to a dynamo at a power plant. Both rotate at about the same speed, but the Crab clearly is the heavyweight: it is 10,000 times bigger than any manmade dynamo, has a magnetic field 1 billion times stronger, produces voltages a million billion times higher, and power 100 million billion times greater.
"That dynamo is producing power and getting rid of that power at a rate 100 times greater than the total radiation of our sun," Ruderman added. The strength and regularity of the source are such that the Crab is used as a "standard candle" for calibrating X-ray telescopes including Chandra.
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While the images from Chandra have enthralled the public and scientists alike, some concerns have developed about the health of the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS), one of Chandra's four main instruments. (The other is the High Resolution Camera (HRC). Each has imaging and spectroscopy sections. In turn, these observe objects directly or through two spectral gratings that are placed in the light path.) Soon after the first ACIS images were released, news emerged that ACIS was starting to fail. In fact, the Front Illuminated ACIS CCDs (charge coupled-devices) had lost some sensitivity, while the reminder were unaffected. Weisskopf said the Chandra team is starting to understand what happened and has taken steps to halt further damage. "These appear to be highly successful and we can continue with our mission unimpaired," he said. While the final engineering outcome is pending, it appears that the ACIS chips were slightly damaged as Chandra passed through the Van Allen radiation belts. The solution has been to retract the ACIS on the rail it shares with the HRC so ACIS is fully inside the instrument housing during the radiation belt transits. "Since we have done that, we have seen no further degradation," Weisskopf continued. ACIS remains undamaged as an imaging instrument. As a spectrometer, it has lost some of its "color" perception, but that can be compensated by building mosaic images with the backside chips, which have a smaller field of view. |
"The remarkable Chandra pictures may give remarkable clues to how neutron stars shed power," Ruderman said.
"The Crab is the gift that just keeps on giving," Hester added. "It's hard to come up with enough superlatives to describe what this thing is doing."
Hester has studied the Crab in visible light, including images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope that show wisps of materials expanding outward at half the speed of light and "a ring that is dancing." In a profession where astronomers often count themselves lucky to see an object change in the course of their careers, images a few days apart show that the Crab reinvented itself, Hester continued.
The bright areas in the Chandra images correspond with the bright areas in the Hubble images taken in 1996, and appear to be telling part of what is going on inside the heart of the Crab.
While the visible portion of the Crab has been known since the mid-1700s, the pulsar has only been known since 1968 when radio astronomers stumbled across radio pulsating stars. The Crab turned out to be pulsing in visible light and X-rays as well.
The two obviously were linked, but the exact connection was missing. Hester said it was like knowing where Hoover Dam and Las Vegas are located, but not knowing where the power lines run.
"The sharp ring [in Chandra's image] is exactly where it needs to be to tie the pulsar to the rest of the nebula," he said. While he cautions that "we're not going to say we understand it yet. ... We're finally seeing the place where the pulsar and the Crab Nebula couple each other together."
Another striking aspect of the image is a sharp edge on the right side of the Crab. Weisskopf assured reporters that it is a real effect and not an artifact of the telescope or the image. When asked whether it might be caused by the Crab's magnetic fields, Hester replied:
Right: A QuickTime movie of a Chandra's-eye view of the Crab nebula. First is a view of Chandra pointing toward the visible light image of the Crab nebula, and then zooming in with the X-ray view. Also available in a
"Come back in a year, come back in a couple of years and perhaps we can answer that. ... Science progresses by learning new things, which lead to new puzzles. From those come new questions and the next set of new puzzles."
Web Links
Peering into the heart of a Crab - The Crab is one of the most beautiful - and most studied - bodies in the skies, and serves as a Rosetta Stone for modern astrophysics.
New Chandra Images Released - X-ray pictures from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory reveal previously unobserved features in the remnants of three different supernova explosions. Sept. 23
Chandra peers into the Large Magellanic Cloud -- The X-ray Observatory's High Resolution Camera catches extraordinary pictures of a distant supernova remnant. September 13, 1999
NASA Unveils First Light Images from Chandra -- The newest Great Observatory is making an immediate impact with spectacular new views of the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant and a distant quasar. August 26, 1999
Studying the Titanium Star -- When the Chandra X-ray Observatory took its "first light" image, it wasn't looking at just another star shining in the darkness. It was watching a foundry distribute its wares to the rest of the galaxy. August 26, 1999
Why Launch Chandra at Night? -- Chandra's beautiful early morning launch will place it into an orbit unlike that of NASA's other Great Observatories, July 23, 1999
Related Sites
Xrayastronomy.com, science news from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory
Chandra X-ray Observatory Center home page, with links to education, news, and technical pages.
Chandra news from Marshall Space Flight Center
Chandra Project Science is managed at NASA/Marshall, has links to individual instruments and the prime contractor.
X-ray astrophysics branch at NASA/Marshall conducts a broad range of research and technology work, as well as supporting the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Additional images of the Crab Nebula are available from NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day web site:
High Energy Crab Nebula | Pulsar Powered Crab | M1: Filaments of the Crab Nebula | Exploding Crab Nebula
And from the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space web nebula page.
More Space Science Headlines - NASA research on the web
NASA's Office of Space Science press releases and other news related to NASA and astrophysics
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Author: Dave Dooling Curator: Linda Porter NASA Official: M. Frank Rose |
