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Physics News Update
Number 275 (Story #3), June 14, 1996 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein

A MOVIE OF THE CRAB NEBULA provides new details about pulsar dynamics. At the heart of the nebula is a pulsar (the remnant of a 1000-year-old supernova) which casts powerful streams of particles into the surrounding debris-filled medium. The Hubble Space Telescope has recorded a sequence of pictures which show where much of the pulsar's energy goes. One surprise was how quickly the landscape alters: noticeable changes in the region around the pulsar sometimes occurred in a matter of days. A second surprise is that the outward flow of energy is confined largely to two zones: jets shooting out from the poles and wisps of material in the pulsar's equatorial plane. (Science News, 8 June; Science, 7 June.)