---
title: "Crab Nebula: facts, distance and size – Krillion Space"
description: "The Crab Nebula is the expanding debris of a star that exploded as a supernova seen from Earth in 1054. Size, distance and sourced facts."
url: https://krilion.app/atlas/crab-nebula
language: en-US
---

# Crab Nebula

Pulsar wind nebula. Depth 37 on the Krillion Space voyage, in the Milky Way.

The Crab Nebula is the expanding debris of a star that exploded as a supernova seen from Earth in 1054. At its heart is a pulsar, a city-sized neutron star spinning about 30 times a second, which energises the surrounding cloud and makes it one of the most studied objects in the sky.

![The Crab Nebula at depth 37 in Krillion Space, painted by the game (an illustration, not a photograph).](https://krilion.app/assets/atlas/crab-nebula.webp)

## Fact sheet

- **Type:** Supernova remnant and pulsar wind nebula
- **Distance:** About 6,500 light-years from Earth
- **Size:** About 6 light-years across
- **Constellation:** Taurus
- **Position in the sky:** Right ascension 5h 35m, declination +22° 01′
- **Seeing it from Earth:** At about magnitude 8.4 it is too faint for the naked eye but can be found with a small telescope, and NASA lists January as the best month to look.
- **On the voyage:** Depth 37, in the Milky Way section of the route, between the Ring Nebula and the Eagle Nebula

## Things to know

- Chinese astronomers recorded the 1054 supernova as a 'guest star' that could be seen in daylight for nearly a month. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-messier-catalog/messier-1/))
- English astronomer John Bevis found the nebula in 1731, and Charles Messier's later sighting of it, which he first took for a comet, prompted him to start his famous catalogue. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-messier-catalog/messier-1/))
- The central pulsar is a neutron star only about 20 km (12 miles) wide that rotates about 30 times per second and pours out roughly 100,000 times the Sun's energy. ([NASA Chandra](https://chandra.harvard.edu/press/crabfact.html))
- Comparing Hubble images taken about 25 years apart shows the nebula's filaments moving outward at about 5.5 million km per hour. ([ESA/Hubble](https://esahubble.org/news/heic2607/))
- Webb's measurements of nickel and iron suggest the explosion may have been a weak iron-core collapse, not only the rarer electron-capture type that earlier studies favoured. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/investigating-the-origins-of-the-crab-nebula-with-nasas-webb/))

## Sources

- [NASA – Messier 1 (The Crab Nebula)](https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-messier-catalog/messier-1/)
- [Chandra – Crab Nebula fact sheet](https://chandra.harvard.edu/press/crabfact.html)
- [ESA/Hubble – Hubble revisits Crab Nebula to track 25 years of expansion (heic2607)](https://esahubble.org/news/heic2607/)
- [NASA – Investigating the Origins of the Crab Nebula With NASA's Webb](https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/investigating-the-origins-of-the-crab-nebula-with-nasas-webb/)

## On the route

- Previous landmark: [Ring Nebula](https://krilion.app/atlas/ring-nebula)
- Next landmark: [Eagle Nebula](https://krilion.app/atlas/eagle-nebula)
- [The whole Star Atlas](https://krilion.app/atlas)
- [Fly the voyage yourself](https://krilion.app/d/): every right answer warps your ship one stop deeper.