Hubble Tracks Expansion of Crab Nebula After Nearly 1,000 Years | Sci.News

A quarter-century of observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has revealed the ongoing expansion of the Crab Nebula, a remnant of a supernova observed in 1054. New images, released this week, indicate the nebula’s intricate filaments moving outward at a rate of 5.6 million kilometers per hour, providing astronomers with a detailed look at the aftermath of a star’s explosive death.

The supernova that created the Crab Nebula was first recorded by Chinese astronomers in July 1054, appearing as a remarkably bright “guest star” visible even in daylight for 23 days, according to NASA. Contemporaneous records also exist from Japanese, Arabic, and Native American observers. Today, the nebula resides approximately 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus and is a popular target for amateur astronomers.

First identified in 1731 by English astronomer John Bevis and later rediscovered in 1758 by Charles Messier, the nebula’s name originates from a drawing made by Irish astronomer Lord Rosse in 1844, which depicted the nebula resembling a crab. At the heart of the Crab Nebula lies the Crab Pulsar, a rapidly rotating neutron star that continues to energize the nebula’s expansion.

“We tend to suppose of the sky as being unchanging, immutable,” said astronomer William Blair of Johns Hopkins University, who led the new observations. “However, with the longevity of the Hubble Space Telescope, even an object like the Crab Nebula is revealed to be in motion, still expanding from the explosion nearly a millennium ago.”

The latest Hubble images, paired with those taken in 1999-2000, demonstrate significant changes in the nebula’s structure. Astronomers re-processed the earlier images to facilitate a more accurate comparison. Variations in color within the images reflect changes in the gas’s temperature, density, and chemical composition. The Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), installed during the final Hubble servicing mission in 2009, provided the increased resolution necessary to capture these detailed changes.

Filaments at the periphery of the nebula appear to have moved more significantly than those closer to the center. This is attributed to the nebula being a “pulsar wind nebula,” powered by synchrotron radiation created by the interaction between the pulsar’s magnetic field and the surrounding material. This differs from other supernova remnants, where expansion is driven by shockwaves from the initial explosion.

The new observations are also providing insights into the three-dimensional structure of the Crab Nebula, which can be challenging to determine from a two-dimensional image. Shadows cast by some filaments onto the nebula’s interior haze reveal their relative positions, while the absence of shadows in brighter filaments suggests they are located on the far side of the nebula.

Researchers anticipate further insights by combining the Hubble data with recent observations from other telescopes, including infrared data released by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope in 2024. A paper detailing the new Hubble observation was published in January 2026 in The Astrophysical Journal.