APOD: In the Valley of Orion (2018 Jan 17)

[APOD Robot]

In 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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[rj rl]

The walls are surprisingly opaque when looking from within. The night skies on a planet in that valley would be an interesting sight.

[Indigo_Sunrise]

Very unusual image; the three minute flight video is very interesting viewing, also - nice job, APOD!

[Fred the Cat]

It’s like being mesmerized by a familiar setting within a beautiful fog.

IMG_1385.JPG

Thanks for such a wonderful new perspective!

[De58te]

Interesting visuals, but I question the choice of Dvorak's serenade music, which is gentle, boring and actually depressing. If you were actually sailing through the nebula, your life would be in constant danger from bombardment of deadly gamma rays, cosmic rays and ionized nuclear particles. Not to mention oxygen gas would be pretty rare and you'd have a difficult time just to breathe. A more appropriate music for the occasion would be Steppenwolf's Magic Carpet Ride, or the Beatles Helter Skelter. "I'm coming down fast but I am miles above you. When I get to the bottom I go back to the top! On a cloud of sound I drift in the night. Any place it goes is right. Goes far, flies near. To the stars away from here. Well, you don't know what we can find on a Magic Nebula Ride."

[Case]

Beautiful, and quite similar to a sequence from the Hubble 3D (2010) movie, narrated by DiCaprio.
Intuitively the valley looks weird, as the view is distinctly not isotropic, with a clear open space on the near side and a fluffy nebulous bedding on the far side. Pretty, but how realistic?

[ta152h0]

I live in a valley and get a lot of fog also. Different mechanism, I am sure.

[bystander]

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=37925

[JohnD]

Wow! It's essential, IMHO, to go and see that video - the APOD just hasn't enough to make it comprehensible otherwise!

There's a short part of the sequence, around 1:30, where the PoV flies past an appprently solid object, that appears to move from centre to lower left. It looks like a dandelion seed, complete with canopy. Has someone put a Larry Niven Starseed in there?

But what would the sky look like, from a planet around one of the nebula's stars? Is it old enough to imagine life there? They would have to be poets.

John

[Chris Peterson]

But what would the sky look like, from a planet around one of the nebula's stars?

Well, the nebula would be no brighter than it appears to us with our naked eye from here. So what you'd likely have would be a night sky that is somewhat lighter than we have here (imagine the Milky Way spread out uniformly across the entire sky), and a lot fewer stars (but maybe a few very bright ones). So overall, probably a much less impressive night sky than we have.

[Ho Diddle]

There's a short part of the sequence, around 1:30, where the PoV flies past an appprently solid object, that appears to move from centre to lower left. It looks like a dandelion seed, complete with canopy. Has someone put a Larry Niven Starseed in there?

John

That looks to me like a natal star with a protoplanetary disc emitting jets and showing bow shock at one end where it's moving against the flow of the molecular cloud. It's closer to 1:50 in the video.

[Boomer12k]

Such a great view of one of my favorite places...but poses a question.... then what is the biggest valley in the galaxy? In the Universe?

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