Take in the Orion Nebula: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher

The Orion Nebula makes for an expansive scene of glowing hydrogen fuel, sculpted by gravity and the celebs which are forming inside it. Credit score: Fernando Oliveira de Menezes

The Orion Nebula (M42) is without doubt one of the most spectacular sights within the night time sky — a part of a fancy of hydrogen fuel that’s producing a brand new era of stars. It makes a terrific goal in the course of the winter months, even it means bundling as much as get to a great dark-sky website.

Mendacity about 1,350 light-years away and spanning 25 light-years, the Orion Nebula seems to the bare eye as a fuzzy “star” dangling slightly below the three stars of Orion’s belt. However by means of a telescope, it turns into an expansive playground to discover. The star Theta¹ Orionis resolves right into a system of 4 stars that kind the asterism often called the Trapezium. (A number of extra related stars are a part of an open cluster). And the associated object M43 is an extension of the glowing fuel of M42, reduce off from it visually by a darkish lane of dust. Past M43 lies the fainter Working Man Nebula (NGC 1973/5/7).

All of this is only one area of the bigger Orion molecular cloud complicated, which contains a number of different well-known objects like Barnard’s Loop, the Flame Nebula (NGC 2024), and the Horsehead Nebula (Barnard 33).

You possibly can learn extra in regards to the Orion Nebula in Raymond Shubinski’s feature article and in our 101 Cosmic Objects issue from January 2022.

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