Hubble Captures Beating Heart of Crab Nebula

What's inside a nebula? The Hubble Space Telescope finally peeked into the heart of the most photograph nebula in space, the Crab Nebula.

For the first time, astronomers were able to photograph what's inside the cosmic formation. An exploded star spinning right in the middle of Crab Nebula was observed by the Hubble Space Telescope. Experts say that the force of the exploded star is so strong, it can perform 30 complete rotations in a second. The force is 10 billion times stronger than steel, according to Gizmodo.

Crab Nebula was born from a supernova explosion, among the first recorded incident. "It is filled with mysterious filaments that are are not only tremendously complex, but appear to have less mass than expelled in the original supernova and a higher speed than expected from a free explosion," said NASA in a statement. Its size spans at about 10 light-years.

The inner core also has pulses of radiation and "tsunamis" of charged particles embedded in its magnetic field, according to Astronomy Now. To peek into the "heart" of the nebula, astronomers used stack of multiple images taken by Hubble for over 10 years. It is proven that looking beyond the exterior of crab nebula is not an easy feat. The result was discovered through a technique that almost resembles a timelapse. The researchers also made a 3D video of the nebula.

The star in the center of Crab Nebula is about the same mass as the Sun. With the help of Hubble's innovative and sharp cameras the details of the nebula were captured including glowing gas and radiation in blue glow from the electrons moving at the speed of light in its core.

A cosmic violence was also observed in the core of Crab Nebula. Experts say that the neuron star moving at half the speed of light causes shock waves that turn winds from the neuron star to energetic particles.

This finding is something that no man has ever seen before. Although the study of the nebula's "heartbeat" has been proposed some time ago, it was only until today that astronomers successfully rendered an image of a nebula's core.