The Crab Nebula's dynamical age as measured from its northern filamentary jet
- Creators
- Rudie, G. C.
- Fesen, R. A.
- Yamada, T.
Abstract
We present a deep [O III] λλ4959,5007 image of the northern filamentary jet in the Crab Nebula taken with the 8.2-m Subaru telescope. Using this image and an image taken with the Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) 4-m in 1988, we have computed proper motions for 35 locations in the jet. The results suggest that when compared to the main body of the remnant, the jet experienced less outward acceleration from the central pulsar's rapidly expanding synchrotron nebula. The jet's apparent expansion rate yields an undecelerated explosion date for the Crab Nebula of 1055 ± 24 CE, a date much closer to the appearance of the historic 1054 CE guest star than the 1120–1140 CE dates estimated in previous studies using filaments located within the remnant's main nebula. Our proper motion measurements suggest the jet likely formed during the 1054 supernova explosion and represents the remnant's highest velocity knots possibly associated with a suspected N–S bipolar outflow from the supernova explosion.
Additional Information
©2008 The Authors. Journal compilation ©2008 RAS. Accepted 2007 November 28. Received 2007 November 25; in original form 2007 August 29. This research was partially funded by a DOF Research Grant, the ORL SS program and the Richter Memorial fund from Dartmouth College. We thank Molly Hammell for considerable programming assistance and Yuki Nakamura for reduction of the Suprime Cam image. This work is based in part on data collected at Subaru Telescope, which is operated by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.Attached Files
Published - RUDmnras08.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 14075
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20090425-202357974
- DOF Research Grant
- ORL SS program
- Dartmouth College
- Created
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2009-07-08Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-08Created from EPrint's last_modified field