APOD: The Seagull Nebula (2011 Jan 12)

[APOD Robot]

The Seagull Nebula

Explanation: This broad expanse of glowing gas and dust presents a bird-like visage to astronomers from planet Earth, suggesting its popular moniker - The Seagull Nebula. This portrait of the cosmic bird covers a 1.6 degree wide swath across the plane of the Milky Way, near the direction of Sirius, alpha star of the constellation Canis Major. Of course, the region includes objects with other catalog designations: notably NGC 2327, a compact, dusty emission region with an embedded massive star that forms the bird's head (aka the Parrot Nebula, above center). IC 2177 forms the sweeping arc of the seagull's wings. Dominated by the reddish glow of atomic hydrogen, the complex of gas and dust clouds with bright young stars spans over 100 light-years at an estimated 3,800 light-year distance.

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[Ann]

Congratulations on producing such a fine picture of the Seagull Nebula, Michael Sidonio!

Ann

[Beyond]

There's a nice looking bubble at the 3:00 position just outside the red. I wonder who blew it?

[hplar]

If our planet were inside this nebula, would the entire night sky be glowing? Is it possible (or likely) for an earth-like planet to be inside of this nebula?

[NoelC]

Our night sky is glowing - just very very faintly.

I really don't know whether the nebula pictured is much more dense than the surroundings in our little corner of the galaxy - perhaps not - but if you were inside the nebula pictured, the sky wouldn't be any brighter than the nebula looks from here with the unaided eye. It's really pretty dim; the long exposures used to capture the image make virtually invisible things look spectacular. This is really an extraordinary image.

Keep in mind the part of the sky pictured in the APOD is larger than 3 full moons in width and height, yet it's practically impossible to see it with the unaided eye.

-Noel

[Chris Peterson]

If our planet were inside this nebula, would the entire night sky be glowing? Is it possible (or likely) for an earth-like planet to be inside of this nebula?

The sky would probably be a little bit brighter than our own- no brighter than the Milky Way, though. I don't see why you couldn't have terrestrial planets around stars in the nebula, but I don't know about "earth-like". Most of the stars are very young, and the environment itself is somewhat extreme- a high star density means that planetary orbits are likely to be unstable, and it's a fairly high radiation environment, as well. Not the sort of place you'd expect to find a nice, settled down planet like the Earth.

[Ann]

There's a nice looking bubble at the 3:00 position just outside the red. I wonder who blew it?

The bubble is probably reflection nebula van den Bergh 95, blown by the bright blue star inside it, FN Canis Majoris. According to my software, this star may be as far away as 3000 light years, although Bright Star Catalogue says that the star belongs to an OB association at an average distance of 2000 light years. In any case, FN Canis Majoris is one of the stars responsible for ionizing the Seagull Nebula and making it glow red. In fact, several of the bright blue stars scattered across and around the nebula are O and early B stars that seem to belong to the same association as FN Canis Majoris, and they may all help ionizing the cosmic bird.

Ann

[starswarm magellan]

From Earth, many of the star birthing nebula regions look stunningly like the center of van Gogh's Starry Night painting. Yesterday's Tarantula Nebula study is a great example or the Ruby Nebula. It looks as if he painted a fairly detailed telescopic image in some areas, seemingly using false color composite to highlight gasses and dust just like NASA. Weirdly cool.

[mexhunter]

I think that is an extraordinary image, recently I faced another image processing in the same area, and the stars was complicated. Congratulations to Michael Sidonius.
Greetings
César

[marlene]

Will you show the Great Orion Nebula again? The one in which many could clearly see Christ on the cross.