Somebody ought to model this visually

 

Not long ago the incredible James Webb Space Telescope turned itself to take a look at the Crab Nebula.

If you will remember (or if you don't), the Crab Nebula is the expanding cloud that is in the location of a supernova, aka an exploding star. And the really cool thing about the Crab Nebula is that it is known when the star exploded, which is approaching its 1000-year anniversary. While it's possible I'll be here for that anniversary, it's doubtful.  But still, there ought to be a parade or something.

In any case, the star from whence came the Crab exploded in 1054 A.D., and the Chinese saw it and noted it in their astronomical journals. Apparently there are records of it elsewhere (Japan, Korea, the Middle East), too. 

Here's the new image from JWST.

Now I was thinking, someone should have done a simulation of the Crab Nebula star explosion, hence the title of this post, written before I checked if there was one.  And as you might anticipate, yes, there is.

Be patient, it's only 40 seconds long, and remember that in real-time it took nearly 1,000 years to get to this point.