Flashes of the Crab Pulsar
Model: gemini-2.0-flash-exp
Prompt version: 1.0
It somehow survived an explosion that would surely have destroyed our Sun. Now it is spins 30 times a second and is famous for the its rapid flashes. It is the Crab Pulsar, the rotating neutron star remnant of the Supernova that created the Crab Nebula.
A careful eye can spot the Pulsar flashes in the featured time-lapse video, just above the image center. The video was created by adding together images taken only when the Pulsar was flashing, as well as co-added images from other relative times. The Crab Pulsar flashes may have been first noted by an unknown woman attending a public observing night at the University of Chicago in 1957 — but who was not believed.
The progenitor Supernova explosion was seen by many in the year 1054 AD. The expanding Crab Nebula remains a picturesque expanding gas cloud that glows across the electromagnetic spectrum. The Pulsar is now thought to have survived the Supernova explosion because it is composed of extremely-dense quantum-degenerate matter.
Who was this mystery woman? Please email leads to the APOD editors.