Jaw Dropping! Crab Nebula's Powerful Beams Shock Astronomers

Please read my earlier comments on the Crab Nebula and what it's doing to our planet on the second page of this thread (I've linked to the page, it's about 1/3rd down the page. You may find it interesting...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

High-energy rays coming from the nebula are well-known, but coming from the pulsar is something nobody expected."

Exactly where else would high energy gamma rays come from? Pretty well known pulsars are a source of high energy gamma ray emissions. BTW you won't see them, gamma rays are well beyond our visual spectrum.

Gamma rays typically have frequencies above 10 exahertz (or >10^19 Hz), and therefore have energies above 100 keV and wavelength less than 10 picometers, less than the diameter of an atom, much shorter than X-rays, also beyond our visual spectrum. Fear not as gamma ray falloff is rapid, maybe a 30-ly distance from a source is safe, plus you would have to be exactly in the thin 'tube' of the very localized jet stream, (usually the poles of a collapsed star, black hole, or now confirmed pulsar), and the Crab Nebula is about 6,500 ly distant from us. Odds have it a gamma jet would miss earth, and if one hit earth it would not consume the entire planet, but a persistent hit would destroy the ozone and everyone would eventually die on the planet, unless you can sustain life in a bunker somewhere a mile deep underground or under water, for an undetermined length of time, not pleasant.

Have a nice day.

The more we learn, the more we realize we have only scratched the surface. That's what makes it so interesting!

Originally posted by Sentience365
reply to post by sirhc0329

 

The contents of the universe never cease to amaze, never. What celestial children we really are, we know so little about this place in which we live.

indeed...evolution at its finest...so much to see and discover... with so little time to do ..

reply to post by lonewolf19792000


After dec 2012 passes and there is no Planet X, Elenin, or invasion from the reptillians. Then the threads about getting nailed by a stars Radiation can always wreak fear into the hearts of many. So keep your head up we just found the next possible Earth destroying cosmic catastrophy. It will be ok... See you in Jan 2013

Originally posted by hanyak69
reply to post by lonewolf19792000

 

After dec 2012 passes and there is no Planet X, Elenin, or invasion from the reptillians. Then the threads about getting nailed by a stars Radiation can always wreak fear into the hearts of many. So keep your head up we just found the next possible Earth destroying cosmic catastrophy. It will be ok... See you in Jan 2013

I'm not worried, as long as i die so fast i don't realize what happened. i don;t want a slow and long lingering good bye. Just drop an asteroid on me and be done with it.

ok the crab nebula is BIGGG so there's a pulsar in it and they say there shocked??
Why do you think its visible to begin with? its so large ((light years across)) that there are more then one star in it .
Now for all of you who were so good in English class but failed science . A nebula is formed when a star goes nova (well one of the ways) and all that is left will be a expanding cloud of gas and dust with the stars core still some were in there and as the left overs still give out light as this star could now be a pulsar or white dwarf .
The nebula will be light up and glowing .
also if there's another star near by or this was a binary system you will have more then one star in it.
Heck there's some nebula that are over 10 light years across now if we were in the middle of that every star within ten light years would be to alpha centenary, beta well heres a list of stars solstation.com...
12 stars and earth is in the boondocks.
chances are one of them is a pulsar

A party discussion from years ago, one friend of mine suggested that if he knew it was his time to die, but he could have one wish to experience before, he proposed an interesting thought.

He would like to be put on a spaceship, strapped behind a forward looking window to the stars, and consume a lethal dose of pure '___', (if that is possible), and not be quite sure when you actually expire.

BTW that friend of mine died in his youth from an illicit drug overdose, perhaps in his own mind he ultimately got his death wish.

RIP Dee, I miss you.

I'll never forget that you topped my little league year long batting average of .586 with your .604, I had one bad game going 0 for 3 that lowered that year plus we won the World Series, before that game I was at .606. You SOB! One party bet I lost!

reply to post by Illustronic


The cool thing is last week we could have already been hit and just not know it, because it is invisible. So now we are all dying a slow death.......hmmmm sounds like a hundred years ago ....were they hit tooo?
The thing is we are constantly being bombarded with pulses from every direction and just don't know it. For all we know ( not man's theory, which changes everyday) these impulses might help our earth instead of destroy it. How many radiation impulse stars are there in the universe? Exact number will never be known. Out of all those pulses don't you think we would pass through one every few seconds? Oh nooooo I just got hit by another one.....

reply to post by hanyak69


We've all been dying since birth, the fact we can converse proves we are not finished yet.

Procrastination does have one benefit. I'll get back to it later.

Thank you all for the replies, the stars, and the flags. This has been my most successful thread so far. I'm glad those of you who decided to click the thread enjoyed reading it.

Originally posted by kjburto
It is so beautiful out there and so much to explore. Great trying to be richer than the next guyfind S&F!!! I can't help but think we would more than likely be out there ourselves exploring this stuff up close if we weren't so busy trying trying to kill each other with all these wars and robbing each other so we have more money than the other guy. If we would just come together as humans living on the same planet and focus our imaginations, creativeness, and ambitions towards the stars, I know for a fact we would at least be sending ships with crews out to edge of the solar system and possibly even the galaxy. Nope here we sit still fighting over land, resources, and money. Some day I hope we get over this petty crap. One can wish anyway...lol

Anyway great article! Thanks

As much as I hate to sound like a dirty, peace-loving hippy, you're spot on.

The only way we will get off this dying rock is through world-wide cohesion and pooling of resources. Over-inflated egos will be the cause of our extinction.

Ironically, the technology that got us to this point in planetary exploration was rooted in our strive to develop better instruments of war.

Just to make sure we're all on the same page, we're talking about the white beam of light at the center, correct???





I don't understand what makes (a pulsar?) suddenly, emit a beam of light.
How long does it last?

I don't see how light could be that focused unless it was produced from a source at the exact time the photo was taken. Light can't remain like that, it's too chaotic. Plus muzzleflash said it was an artist's rendition, but I just wanted to add my two cents. Peace!

reply to post by Human_Alien


How long it lasts is undetermined. A pulsar is one of the most volatile bodies in the universe. Most usually have very fast rotational speeds, measured in milliseconds per. A star needs to have a mass greater than our sun by 8 fold or so to become a neutron star to eventually collapse into a pulsar. This means it is very small, very massive, and spins very fast. Study of this and other collapsed stars is in its infancy, we just don't know enough yet.

Lucky for us none are close enough to hurt us, which also makes measurements of such very hard and largely theoretical. Our model isn't broken yet, it does require tweaking as discoveries amass. That is science, the ability to amend theories upon new measurements that the consensus deems valid. Does not whatsoever (yet) mean we are on the wrong fork in the road, like EU people are.

awesome thread and very interesting, with that said, I thought I would nip in the butt the doomsdayers out there.
Our universe as created by GOD is very beautiful......I am glad to be a spec of a spec in a vast vortex of cosmic glorification........Intercorrelated into the fourth quadrant of imperical existance as known by a few as outerspace.
Again awesome thread.

reply to post by sirhc0329


Nice find ..... @least its not aiming the LGRB this way

reply to post by sirhc0329


Thank you for sharing. The Nebula is awsome and the power of the gamma rays amazes me. Also you crack me up. BFE Oklahoma huh? Well Im in nowhere ohio,,,, lol

Originally posted by Magantice
reply to post by sirhc0329

 

Thank you for sharing. The Nebula is awsome and the power of the gamma rays amazes me. Also you crack me up. BFE Oklahoma huh? Well Im in nowhere ohio,,,, lol

Ha's! We cant All be from L.A. or New York eh? haha. Nowhere, Ohio sounds about as cool as BFE, Oklahoma. But our current geographic location has No bearing on who we are. The world wouldn't be the same without you or me.

That's quite a wicked nebula though huh. I wonder what it would sound like to be near it?

The article seems to be saying that while many astronomers have studied the Crab pulsar in the past, no one even ever THOUGHT of looking at it with gamma ray detectors. This is a case where a scientist asks a question other scientists didn't ask because they were taught that only certain things were there and they accepted it without question.

Along comes a new scientist who says, "Hey, you know that sweet gamma ray radio telescope we have in Arizona? Well, I'd like to point it at the Crab pulsar and see what we find."

Other scientists say, "What? You fool, you are wasting your time. Pulsars are well understood objects and don't emit gamma rays."

Scientist says, "Really? When was the last time anybody checked?"

Other scientists, "Well, I don't know, but why would they? We've been told they don't emit gamma rays fool!"

Scientist says, "That's what I was afraid you'd say. I've got the funding, I'm doing it, FOR SCIENCE."