When a star dies in a violent, fiery death, it spews its innards out across the sky, creating an expanding wave of gas and dust known as a supernova nebula. Arguably the most famous of these supernova remnants is M1, also called the Crab Nebula, a blob-like patch visible even in low-powered binoculars.
The nebula lies in the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way galaxy, at a distance of about 6,500 light years from Earth. It has a diameter of 11 light years and is expanding at a rate of about 930 miles per second or 0.5% of the speed of light.
At the centre of the nebula lies the Crab Pulsar, a neutron star 28–30 kilometres in diameter. This is the crushed ember or remnant of the star that is left over after the supernova explosion.
The nebula must have become visible on Earth about 900 years ago, based on historical records revealed that a new star bright enough to be seen in the daytime had been recorded in the same part of the sky by Chinese astronomers on 4 July 1054, and probably also by Japanese observers.
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