Photo #1 (April 2008)

THE CRAB NEBULA IN TAURUS

    I have been thinking of
    the difference between water
    and the waves on it.  Rising,
    Water’s still water, falling back,
    It is water.
    Will you give me a hint
    How to tell then apart?

    Because someone has made up the word
     ‘wave’, do I have to distinguish it
     from water?

    There is a Secret One inside us;
    The planets in all the galaxies
    Pass through his hands like beads.

    That is a string of beads one should look at
     with luminous eyes.”
                                        – Kabir
 

 
Credit: ESP PR photo 40f/99

PR Photo 40f/99 shows a three colour composite of the well-known Crab Nebula (also known as "Messier 1"), as observed with the FORS2 instrument in imaging mode. It is the remnant of a supernova explosion at a distance of about 6,000 light-years, observed almost 1000 years ago, in the year 1054. It contains a neutron star near its center that spins 30 times per second around its axis (see below). In this picture, the green light is predominantly produced by hydrogen emission from material ejected by the star that exploded. The blue light is predominantly emitted by very high-energy ("relativistic") electrons that spiral in a large-scale magnetic field (so-called syncrotron emission). It is believed that these electrons are continuously accelerated and ejected by the rapidly spinning neutron star at the centre of the nebula and which is the remnant core of the exploded star. This pulsar has been identified with the lower/right of the two close stars near the geometric center of the nebula, immediately left of the small arc-like feature.

We live in an amazing world in which, with a few touches of our keyboard, we can see the distant stars and galaxies in our universe and any place on planet earth.

I would like my children and grandchildren to be able to see these, too, when I have shuffled off to other planes of existence.

How can we work together to stop the suicidal path humanity is pursuing, so that my wishes and yours, should they be similar, can come true?
                                                 D.B.