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The Crab Nebula derived its name from its appearance
in a drawing made by Irish astronomer Lord Rosse in 1844, using a 36-inch
telescope. When viewed by Hubble, as well as by large ground-based telescopes
such as the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, the
Crab Nebula takes on a more detailed appearance that yields clues into
the spectacular demise of a star, 6,500 light-years away. This is a
mosaic image, one of the largest ever taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope
of the Crab Nebula, a six-light-year-wide expanding remnant of a star's
supernova explosion. Japanese and Chinese astronomers recorded this
violent event nearly 1,000 years ago in 1054,
as did, almost certainly, Native Americans.
For other space images, see HubbleSite News Center