Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Extraordinary Line-Emitting Knots In The Crab Nebula, Gordon M. Macalpine, Stephen S. Lawrence, Beth A. Brown, Alan Uomoto, Bruce E. Woodgate, Larry W. Brown, Ronald J. Oliversen, James D. Lowenthal, Charles Liu

Astronomy: Faculty Publications

Extraordinary, semistellar, line-emitting knots are apparent in images of the Crab Nebula which were obtained with the Goddard Fabry-Perot imager at the Michigan-Dartmouth-MIT Observatory. The knots are most prominent for [O III] λ5007 emission through a 5.3 Å (FWHM) bandpass centered at 5015.3 Å, with representative fluxes of roughly 10-14 ergs cm-2 s-1. They are aligned in arcs, seven to the north and four to the south, from the pulsar. The northern group appears to be in a bounded corridor through the filamentary structure. Measurements over a 2 year baseline yield proper motions of order 0″.1 yr-1, corresponding to transverse …