APOD: The Valley of Orion (2020 Aug 28)

[APOD Robot]

The Valley of Orion

Explanation: This exciting and unfamiliar view of the Orion Nebula is a visualization based on astronomical data and movie rendering techniques. Up close and personal with a famous stellar nursery normally seen from 1,500 light-years away, the digitally modeled frame transitions from a visible light representation based on Hubble data on the left to infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope on the right. The perspective at the center looks along a valley over a light-year wide, in the wall of the region's giant molecular cloud. Orion's valley ends in a cavity carved by the energetic winds and radiation of the massive central stars of the Trapezium star cluster. The single frame is part of a multiwavelength, three-dimensional video that lets the viewer experience an immersive, three minute flight through the Great Nebula of Orion.

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[Jim Westwood]

Can anyone figure what is the strange object that comes flying through the field of view at about 1:50 in the three-minute video flight through the nebula?

[LMMdT]

It looks like a planet but I would not discard to be the Enterprise starship within a warp speed bubble

[orin stepanek]

Nice!

[DrJoeS]

This reminds me of the chase scene in Star Trek 2. A great visual here

[De58te]

Can anyone figure what is the strange object that comes flying through the field of view at about 1:50 in the three-minute video flight through the nebula?

My guess is from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's description; that could be a "tadpole-shaped gaseous envelopes surrounding protoplanetary disks." (Although I didn't notice a tadpole shape.)

[Sa Ji Tario]

I think it is an object put on purpose to attract attention and review the video more carefully

[Ann]

Can anyone figure what is the strange object that comes flying through the field of view at about 1:50 in the three-minute video flight through the nebula?

A proplyd, like people have said. A proto-planetary disk. One of these things:

Proplyds in Orion. Credit: NASA/ESA and L. Ricci (ESO)

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By the way, I like the 3D shape of the Orion Nebula. It is a well-known fact that massive stars carve out bubbles around themselves. So the fact that the Trapezium would make a "hole" in the Orion Nebula makes perfect sense.

Ann

[BDanielMayfield]

Yes this is a nice video. I don't want to come off sounding like a hater here, but there are a few issues that keep me from liking it completely. I like the zoom in beginning, but then there seem to be a bit too many hard and flat boundaries between cloud and empty space. Straight edges to clouds appear unnatural.

And then there's the way the stars are depicted. This flaw is mainly due to the limitations of our display devices in showcasing brightness differences, but might there be a way to make stars appear brighter as approaching them is simulated? As no attempt at all is made to brighten them the brilliance of the Trapezium stars are lost as the cluster is approached and flown though. Star colors are also uniformly white.

And, as to the Trapezium, some of them are known to be binary, but no attempt was made to depict this. Then too, their tight grouping is shown from the sideways approach to not be very close at all. Is this idea based on science, or merely imagination?

[johnnydeep]

Can anyone figure what is the strange object that comes flying through the field of view at about 1:50 in the three-minute video flight through the nebula?

That jumped out at me as well (literally!). It sure does look curious:

Odd Object or Artifact in Orion Fly-Through

[BDanielMayfield]

The importance of the Trapezium was highlighted by this sentence in the explanation:

Orion's valley ends in a cavity carved by the energetic winds and radiation of the massive central stars of the Trapezium star cluster.

The link in that quote leads to an APOD from three years ago, called "At the Heart of Orion". That APOD elicited an interesting discussion re the theory that a 100-150 solar massed black hole might be inside the Trapezium Cluster. The discussion ended with a desire for more data about the motions of the Trapezium stars hopefully coming from the Gaia mission.

The theory about the BH in Orion was from a 2012 paper. It was much discussed and argued about, both here and elsewhere. But there has been nothing further about this afaik (and bystander works hard to keep us up speed on new findings). Therefore, is this theory about the possible Trapezium related BH dead?