Posted on 05/23/2011 7:32:00 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
[Credit: NASA, DOE, Fermi LAT, R. Buehler (SLAC, KIPAC)] Explanation: Why does the Crab Nebula flare? No one is sure. The unusual behavior, discovered over the past few years, seems only to occur in very high energy light -- gamma rays. As recently as one month ago, gamma-ray observations of the Crab Nebula by the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope showed an unexpected increase in gamma-ray brightness, becoming about five times the nebula's usual gamma-ray brightness, and fading again in only a few days. Now usually the faster the variability, the smaller the region involved. This might indicate that the powerful pulsar at the center of the Crab, a compact neutron star rotating 30 times a second, is somehow involved. Specifically, speculation is centered on the changing magnetic field that surely surrounds the powerful pulsar. Rapid changes in this field might lead to waves of rapidly accelerated electrons which emit the flares, possibly in ways similar to our Sun. The above image shows how the Crab Nebula normally appears in gamma rays, as compared to the Geminga pulsar, and how it then appeared during the recent brightening.
(Excerpt) Read more at apod.nasa.gov ...
Caution: this topic contains references to shellfish.
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There’s that word again: “unexpected”
Obama - The “Unexpected” President?
Ah-HA! So Harold Camping was right. He just had the wrong solar system.
Something cool I just spotted at space.com. Pics of the iceland volcano erupting taken from space.
http://www.space.com/11754-erupting-volcano-snapped-space.html
To quote Richard Prior:
"They say the crabs don't cause you to bleed. Well, they do if you give them to me."
The Crab Nebula is 6,500 LIGHT YEARS from Earth. If the flares we are now observing left the Crab Nebula 6,500 years ago, we actually have NO idea what is happening there NOW! What’s happening there NOW will not become visible on Earth for 6,500 years! I think LONG before that, the scriptures of Ezekiel, Daniel and Revelation will have come to pass, and The Redeemed will be going sightseeing to such locales as the Crab Nebula on Day Trips! ;oD
cool!!
Same as crab grass. No matter how many times you kill it, it just pops up AGAIN AND AGAIN.
LOL! Or wait...was that not a joke? I feel itchy....
Funniest Harold Camping joke yet.
Many flareups can be traced to shellfishness.
If you start lumbering sideways, sea your doctor.
Nice!
Turns out it’s only 5,600 light years away. :’)
Thanks!
:’)
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