Starship Asterisk*

Spitzer's Orion

Explanation: Few cosmic vistas excite the imagination like the Orion Nebula, an immense stellar nursery some 1,500 light-years away. This stunning false-color view spans about 40 light-years across the region, constructed using infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope. Compared to its visual wavelength appearance, the brightest portion of the nebula is likewise centered on Orion's young, massive, hot stars, known as the Trapezium Cluster. But the infrared image also detects the nebula's many protostars, still in the process of formation, seen here in red hues. In fact, red spots along the dark dusty filament to the left of the bright cluster include the protostar cataloged as HOPS 68, recently found to have crystals of the silicate mineral olivine within its protostellar envelope.

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Orion is surely one of the most-photographed objects in space, and obviously a telescope like Spitzer must have created its own portrait of this nearby site of star formation. I decided to google "Orion Spitzer" and came up with three different images, one from 2006, one from 2011 and one from 2012. The 2011 one is today's APOD. Of course there is nothing wrong with repeats. And since this one is a repeat, there already exists a comment thread on it, which you might want to read. It is pretty nice!

I'd like to call attention once again to how stars seem to form along "tubes" of dark nebulosity. Fascinating, as Spock might have said. Starship Asterisk*'s own Spock, NoelC, the creepy one (but now apparently retired ), posted an interesting comparison between the visual and the infrared view of the Orion Nebula in the 2011 thread. Check it out!

Ann

DIBS ON THE MINERAL RIGHTS!!!!!!!!

Ah'm gonna be RICH!!!!

Yee HAW!!!!

Really interesting photo of my favorite spot...

:---[===] *

Lovely!

Boomer12k wrote:DIBS ON THE MINERAL RIGHTS!!!!!!!!

Ah'm gonna be RICH!!!!

The densest molecular cloud regions might reach a particle density of 10⁶/cm³. Most of the region has particle densities a few orders of magnitude less than that. So you're going to have to develop a mechanism to efficiently collect a lot of material over a huge volume. I'd stick closer to home: there are 10⁸ atoms of gold in a cubic centimeter of seawater.

This pìcture ( for me) be called " Living Nature"

APOD Robot wrote:Few cosmic vistas excite the imagination like the Orion Nebula, an immense stellar nursery some 1,500 light-years away. ...

I've been looking at and thinking about the Orion nebula a lot lately, although I'm taking a short break from visual observation while the Moon passes through her full phase. I've been wondering, to what extent does the Orion nebula appear to be "an immense stellar nursery" because at 1500 light years it's relatively close to our solar system, or is it really immense in absolute terms when compared with similar regions elsewhere in the Milky Way or other galaxies? A quick web search gives a diameter of 25 light years for the Orion nebula, vs. 1500 light years for the emission nebula NGC 604 in the nearby spiral galaxy M33. Does anybody know off the top of your head how our neighbor Orion compares to a census of other starbirth regions?

Anthony Barreiro wrote:

APOD Robot wrote:Few cosmic vistas excite the imagination like the Orion Nebula, an immense stellar nursery some 1,500 light-years away. ...

I've been looking at and thinking about the Orion nebula a lot lately, although I'm taking a short break from visual observation while the Moon passes through her full phase. I've been wondering, to what extent does the Orion nebula appear to be "an immense stellar nursery" because at 1500 light years it's relatively close to our solar system, or is it really immense in absolute terms when compared with similar regions elsewhere in the Milky Way or other galaxies? A quick web search gives a diameter of 25 light years for the Orion nebula, vs. 1500 light years for the emission nebula NGC 604 in the nearby spiral galaxy M33. Does anybody know off the top of your head how our neighbor Orion compares to a census of other starbirth regions?

I believe Orion is pretty small. It is a midget compared with the Carina Nebula, it is small compared with the Lagoon Nebula, and it is no match for the Eagle or Swan Nebula. Off the top of my head, I believe it is comparable to the Trifid Nebula. In both cases, the nebula is ionized mostly by just one massive star, which in the case of Orion is Theta 1C Orionis.

Ann

Ann wrote:

Anthony Barreiro wrote:

APOD Robot wrote:Few cosmic vistas excite the imagination like the Orion Nebula, an immense stellar nursery some 1,500 light-years away. ...

I've been looking at and thinking about the Orion nebula a lot lately, although I'm taking a short break from visual observation while the Moon passes through her full phase. I've been wondering, to what extent does the Orion nebula appear to be "an immense stellar nursery" because at 1500 light years it's relatively close to our solar system, or is it really immense in absolute terms when compared with similar regions elsewhere in the Milky Way or other galaxies? A quick web search gives a diameter of 25 light years for the Orion nebula, vs. 1500 light years for the emission nebula NGC 604 in the nearby spiral galaxy M33. Does anybody know off the top of your head how our neighbor Orion compares to a census of other starbirth regions?

I believe Orion is pretty small. It is a midget compared with the Carina Nebula, it is small compared with the Lagoon Nebula, and it is no match for the Eagle or Swan Nebula. Off the top of my head, I believe it is comparable to the Trifid Nebula. In both cases, the nebula is ionized mostly by just one massive star, which in the case of Orion is Theta 1C Orionis.

Ann

Thanks Ann, that was my impression, it's helpful to have some confirmation. Although the Orion nebula may be small, I'm still grateful to see it so close and bright on winter evenings.

Ann wrote:I believe Orion is pretty small. It is a midget compared with the Carina Nebula, it is small compared with the Lagoon Nebula, and it is no match for the Eagle or Swan Nebula. Off the top of my head, I believe it is comparable to the Trifid Nebula. In both cases, the nebula is ionized mostly by just one massive star, which in the case of Orion is Theta 1C Orionis.

That's all true, but perhaps it would be better to consider the region more as we'd see it from another galaxy. The Orion Nebula is just one small part of a much larger region of gas, dust, and star formation, all related. The Orion Complex is hundreds of light years across, making it one of the larger star forming regions in the galaxy, and comparable to large star forming regions seen in other galaxies.

Chris Peterson wrote:

Ann wrote:I believe Orion is pretty small. It is a midget compared with the Carina Nebula, it is small compared with the Lagoon Nebula, and it is no match for the Eagle or Swan Nebula. Off the top of my head, I believe it is comparable to the Trifid Nebula. In both cases, the nebula is ionized mostly by just one massive star, which in the case of Orion is Theta 1C Orionis.

That's all true, but perhaps it would be better to consider the region more as we'd see it from another galaxy. The Orion Nebula is just one small part of a much larger region of gas, dust, and star formation, all related. The Orion Complex is hundreds of light years across, making it one of the larger star forming regions in the galaxy, and comparable to large star forming regions seen in other galaxies.

But would the Orion complex glow as brightly as, say, NGC 604?