Free Astronomy Magazine September-October 2016

30 SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2016 SPACE CHRONICLES The Crab Nebula as never seen before by NASA W hile many other images of the fa- mous Crab Nebula have focused on the filaments in the outer part of the nebula, this image shows the very heart of the Crab Nebula including the central neutron star — it is the rightmost of the two bright stars near the centre of this image. The rapid motion of the ma- terial nearest to the central star is re- vealed by the subtle rainbow of colours in this time-lapse image, the rainbow effect being due to the movement of material over the time between one image and another. [NASA, ESA]