Public domain
History of Chandra X-Ray Observatory
From the collection of NASA Image and Video Library. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
After barely 2 months in space, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory (CXO) took this sturning image of the Crab Nebula, the spectacular remains of a stellar explosion, revealing something never seen before, a brilliant ring around the nebula's heart. The image shows the central pulsar surrounded by tilted rings of high-energy particles that appear to have been flung outward over a distance of more than a light-year from the pulsar.
NASA Image and Video Library’s own descriptionCredit lineHistory of Chandra X-Ray Observatory. NASA/MSFC, 1999-09-01. Public domain. ID: 9905980.
