Hubble images taken 25 years apart show big changes in the iconic Crab Nebula — Space photo of the week
Quick facts
What is this : 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 Hubble Space TelescopeThe surprising longevity of gives astronomers the chance to see not only what distant objects look like up close, but also how they change over time.
There are few more iconic objects in the night sky than the Crab Nebula, a cosmic cloud that links ancient astronomy to modern space telescopes. In the year 1054, a a supernova in the constellation Taurus lit up the daytime sky for several weeks — an event recorded by early astronomers in Japan, China and the Middle East. This “guest star” eventually faded from view, but it remains one of the best-documented cosmic explosions in human history.
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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 supernova 1054. The compelling evidence was the discovery of a pulsar – a rapidly rotating neutron star, still typical of a supernova – at the center of the Crab Nebula.
This pulsar has been busy fueling the nebula’s expansion in the 25 years since it was first photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope. The latest telescope observations of the Crab Nebula, published earlier this year in The Astrophysics Journalallowed astronomers to measure the outward movement of the nebula’s complex filaments.
THE differences between the two images This may seem light, but the filaments expand at around 3.4 million mph (5.5 million km/h). The expansion is not caused by shock waves from the initial explosion – as many supernova remnants are – but by the pulsar, whose powerful magnetic field propels the charged particles outwards. This energy source causes the nebula to expand and illuminates its luminous filaments.
The images, which use Hubble’s high-resolution Wide Field Camera 3 (installed by the astronauts in 2009), allow scientists to see structures and details in 3D, with blue regions indicating the hottest, lowest-density gas and yellow and red tones revealing live sulfur and oxygen. (The 1999/2000 photo has also been reprocessed to match the resolution of Wide Field Camera 3.)
“We tend to think that the sky is immutable, immutable” William Blaira Johns Hopkins University astronomer who led the new observations said in a statement NASA statement. “However, with the longevity of the Hubble Space Telescope, even an object like the Crab Nebula turns out to be on the move, still expanding since the explosion nearly a millennium ago.”
Hubble is not the only telescope to have managed to capture this spectacular supernova remnant. In 2023, the James Webb Space Telescope also captured a incredibly detailed photo of the Crab Nebulawhich then helped scientists map the cosmic dust inside its expanding shell, according to NASA.
