After 1,000 Years, Astronomers Still Unlocking Secrets of the Crab Nebula

In late spring in the year 1054, a strange light appeared in the sky in what we would now call the constellation Taurus the Bull. It was a new star, where no star had been before. It grew quickly brighter, until by July it outshone everything except the moon. Over the next two years it faded away, becoming a star of normal brightness and eventually disappearing again entirely.Astronomers in China and Japan recorded its arrival, and other observers around the world surely noticed it as we