The beating heart of the Carb

摘要

In 1054 Chinese astronomers spotted a new star so blight that for weeks it could be seen in daylight. We now know that what these early stargazers called a 'guest star' was actually a supernova, the explosive death throes of a super massive star. The core of the star collapsed into a super-dense pulsar and the vast amounts of stellar material blown into space became the Crab Nebula, a popular deep sky target for amateur aslronomers.