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The Crab Nebula, as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera. | Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, W. Blair (JHU). Image Editing: J. DePasquale (STScI))
Quick facts
What is: The Crab Nebula (also called M1), a supernova remnant
Where it is: 6,500 light-years away, in the constellation Taurus
When it was shared: March 23, 2026
The The Hubble TelescopeThe incredible longevity gives astronomers the opportunity to see not only what distant objects look like up close but also how they change over time.
This week, NASA released a surprising example: A comparison of two Hubble images from 1999/2000 and 2024 shows how the Crab Nebula – the remnants of an exploded star – has expanded and changed over a quarter of a century of Hubble images.
There are few objects more unique in the night sky than the Crab Nebula, a cosmic cloud that connects ancient astronomy with modern space telescopes. In the year 1054, a A supernova in the constellation Taurus lit up the sky during the day for several weeks – an event recorded by early astronomers in Japan, China and the Middle East. This “guest star” eventually disappeared but remains one of the most recorded cosmic explosions in human history.
Centuries later, in the mid-18th century, the Crab Nebula was discovered in the constellation Taurus. Astronomers, including Edwin Hubble in the 1950s, linked the Crab Nebula to the supernova of 1054. The smoking gun was the discovery of a pulsar – a rapidly rotating neutron star, a typical supernova remnant – at the center of the Crab Nebula.
The newest image of the Crab Nebula from the Hubble Space Telescope. | Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, W. Blair (JHU). Image Editing: J. DePasquale (STScI))
The pulsar has been busy fueling the expanding nebula in the 25 years since it was first photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope. The telescope’s latest Crab Nebula data, published earlier this year The Astrophysical Journalhave allowed astronomers to measure the outward motion of the nebula’s complex filaments.
The the difference between these two images it may seem small, but the filaments are increasing at about 3.4 million mph (5.5 million km / h). The expansion is not driven by shock waves from the initial explosion – as most supernova remnants are – but with a pulsar, whose gravitational pull ejects the particles outward. This energy source drives the nebula by expanding and illuminating its luminous filaments.
1999/2000 Hubble image shows Crab Nebula smaller than it appeared in 2024 | Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI,
The images, using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (installed by astronomers in 2009), allow scientists to see structures and details in 3D, with blue areas showing the hottest, lowest gas and yellow and red tones revealing enhanced sulfur and oxygen. (The 1999/2000 photo has also been updated to match the Wide Field Camera 3 resolution.)
“We tend to think of heaven as static, unchanging,” William Blairthe Johns Hopkins University astronomer who led the new observations, said to NASA statement. However, with the longevity of the Hubble Space Telescope, even an object like the Crab Nebula is revealed to be moving, expanding since that explosion nearly a thousand years ago.
Hubble is not the only telescope that has been able to capture this amazing supernova remnant. In 2023, the James Webb Space Telescope also captured a a clear image of the Crab Nebulawhich later helped scientists map the cosmic dust within its expanding shell, according to NASA.
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