Originally posted by HandyAndy
Crab Nebula
For the record, the Crab Nebula is the remnant of a supernova that exploded in 1054, just about the time the game of chess was making its way from the Muslim Empire into Europe. Deep within its center is a pulsar which rotates 30 times per second emitting pulses of radiation ranging from gamma rays to radio waves. The image of the Crab Nebula from the Hubble Space Telescope, for all its breathtaking beauty, contains too many bytes for a reasonable avatar. For our purposes, it is yesterday's news.
