Called ... [+] Alpha Orionis, or Betelgeuse, it is a red supergiant star marking the shoulder of the winter constellation Orion the Hunter. This mage of the Crab Nebula taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope shows the six-light-year-wide ... [+] expanding remnant of a star's supernova explosion. The rapidly spinning neutron star embedded in the center of the nebula is the dynamo powering the nebula's eerie interior bluish glow. The blue light comes from electrons whirling at nearly the speed of light around magnetic field lines from the neutron star. The neutron star, the crushed ultra-dense core of the exploded star, ejects twin beams of radiation that appear to pulse 30 times a second due to the neutron star's rotation.

Source: Forbes January 18, 2020 03:00 UTC