Unexpected flares from the crab nebula.

It has been found that the crab nebula puts out flares that dramatically increase its brightness. These flares last only a few days, and have been found to be flares of gamma rays.Objects in the sky that emit a substantial amount of gamma rays are very rare and few are able to be observed from Earth. Because this nebula is a good source of gamma rays, and can be studied from Earth, it is a major subject of research to many astronomers.Because gamma rays have such intense amounts of energy, these flares increase the crab nebula's brightness to five times what is normal.One possible explanation for this phenomenon is that there is a very powerful pulsar at the center of the crab. This would indicate that the crab nebula is a nuetron star with a rotation period of 1/30 th of a second. This an extremely fast rotation for a pulsar. This pulsar has the mass of the sun jammed into a space that is only 12 to 18 miles across,making it extremely dense.