A Giant Hubble Mosaic of the Crab Nebula

FOR RELEASE 10:00 (CET)/4:00 AM (EST) December 1, 2005

PHOTO NO.: STScI-PRC05-37

A GIANT HUBBLE MOSAIC OF THE CRAB NEBULA

The Crab Nebula is a six-light-year-wide expanding remnant of a star's
supernova explosion. Japanese and Chinese astronomers recorded this
violent event nearly 1,000 years ago in 1054, as did, almost certainly,
Native Americans. This composite image was assembled from 24 individual
exposures taken with the NASA Hubble Space Telescopes Wide Field and
Planetary Camera 2 in October 1999, January 2000, and December 2000.
It is one of the largest images taken by Hubble and is the highest
resolution image ever made of the entire Crab Nebula.

Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Hester and A. Loll (Arizona State University)

For the full story, visit:

http://hubblesite.org/news/2005/37
http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/html/heic0515.html

For more information, contact:
Jeff Hester, Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz.,
(phone) 480-965-0741, (e-mail)

Allison Loll, Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz.,
(phone) 480-965-7652, (e-mail)

Jesper Sollerman, Dark Cosmology Center, Copenhagen, Denmark,
(phone) 011-46-8-5537-8554, (e-mail)

Lars Lindberg Christensen, Hubble European Space Agency
Information Center, Garching, Germany, (phone) 011-49-89-3200-6306,
(cell phone) 011-49-173-3872-621, (e-mail)

Ray Villard, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.,
(phone) 410-338-45144, (e-mail)

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation
between NASA and the European Space Agency. The Space Telescope
Science Institute in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations.
The Institute is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities
for Research in Astronomy, Inc., Washington.