Crab Nebula

space · supernovas · ancient astronomy

Massive star explosion. In the year 1054, a star exploded so brightly that people in China, Japan, Arabia, and Mayan lands could see it during the daytime for weeks. We now call this explosion a supernova.

Glowing cloud remains. After that star exploded, it left behind a huge cloud of gas and dust that is still glowing and expanding today, more than 950 years later.

Named after a drawing. An astronomer named William Parsons drew what he saw through his giant telescope in 1843, and it kind of looked like a crab with long arms reaching out, so people started calling it the Crab Nebula.

First supernova link. The Crab Nebula was the very first space object that scientists could match to a supernova explosion that people had actually written down seeing in history.

Ancient observers matched it. Astronomers figured out that the nebula came from that explosion in 1054 by comparing ancient writings from different parts of the world that all described seeing a bright new star in the same spot in the sky.