capture Hubble telescope
processed by Sabin Fota in Pixinsight and PS
processed by Sabin Fota in Pixinsight and PS
JANUARY 11, 2006: In one of the most detailed
astronomical images ever produced, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured an
unprecedented look at the Orion Nebula. This turbulent star formation region is
one of astronomy's most dramatic and photogenic celestial objects.
More than 3,000 stars of various sizes appear in this image. Some of them have
never been seen in visible light. These stars reside in a dramatic dust-and-gas
landscape of plateaus, mountains, and valleys that are reminiscent of the Grand
Canyon. The Orion Nebula is a picture book of star formation, from the massive,
young stars that are shaping the nebula to the pillars of dense gas that may be
the homes of budding stars.
This dramatic image offers a peek inside a cavern of roiling
dust and gas where thousands of stars are forming. The image, taken by the
Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope,
represents the sharpest view ever taken of this region, called the Orion
Nebula. More than 3,000 stars of various sizes appear in this image. Some of
them have never been seen in visible light. These stars reside in a dramatic
dust-and-gas landscape of plateaus, mountains, and valleys that are reminiscent
of the Grand Canyon.
The Orion Nebula is a picture book of star formation, from
the massive, young stars that are shaping the nebula to the pillars of dense
gas that may be the homes of budding stars. The bright central region is the
home of the four heftiest stars in the nebula. The stars are called the
Trapezium because they are arranged in a trapezoid pattern. Ultraviolet light
unleashed by these stars is carving a cavity in the nebula and disrupting the
growth of hundreds of smaller stars. Located near the Trapezium stars are stars
still young enough to have disks of material encircling them. These disks are
called protoplanetary disks or "proplyds" and are too small to see
clearly in this image. The disks are the building blocks of solar systems.
The bright glow at upper left is from M43, a small region
being shaped by a massive, young star's ultraviolet light. Astronomers call the
region a miniature Orion Nebula because only one star is sculpting the
landscape. The Orion Nebula has four such stars. Next to M43 are dense, dark
pillars of dust and gas that point toward the Trapezium. These pillars are
resisting erosion from the Trapezium's intense ultraviolet light. The glowing
region on the right reveals arcs and bubbles formed when stellar winds -
streams of charged particles ejected from the Trapezium stars — collide with
material.
The faint red stars near the bottom are the myriad brown
dwarfs that Hubble spied for the first time in the nebula in visible light.
Sometimes called "failed stars," brown dwarfs are cool objects that
are too small to be ordinary stars because they cannot sustain nuclear fusion
in their cores the way our Sun does. The dark red column, below, left, shows an
illuminated edge of the cavity wall.
The Orion Nebula is 1,500 light-years away, the nearest
star-forming region to Earth. Astronomers used 520 Hubble images, taken in five
colors, to make this picture. They also added ground-based photos to fill out
the nebula. The ACS mosaic covers approximately the apparent angular size of
the full moon.
The Orion observations were taken between 2004 and 2005.
M42 - protoplanetary disk
M42 - protoplanetary disk, little version
