NASA's Hubble found this ancient supernova remnant isn't expanding the way scientists expected

Nearly a thousand years ago, astronomers witnessed a supernova so bright it was visible in daylight for weeks. Its remnant, the Crab Nebula, has continued expanding 6,500 light-years away ever since. In 2024, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope revisited the nebula, capturing a new image that was compared against its own observations from 25 years earlier — with the findings released in March 2026. Rather than stretching outward evenly, the nebula's outer filaments had simply moved outward more than those near its center, a pattern tied to the Crab's true nature as a pulsar wind nebula, powered by a spinning neutron star at its core. Researchers said the real breakthrough was still ahead, as they plan to combine this data with the James Webb Space Telescope's infrared view for the fullest picture yet. Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, W. Blair (JHU); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)