Its dust clouds will be gradually eroded away by the ultraviolet light of the luminous young stars in the vicinity. The nebula will dissipate in the next 5 billion years. If there are young stars in the nebula, they will consume a lot of the nebula’s material in the process of forming. The Horsehead contains protostars, but its clouds are so dense that they block the visible light of newly formed stars. The bright spots at the Horsehead Nebula’s base mark very young stars that are still in the process of forming. The nebula appears shadowy in optical light, but transparent at infrared wavelengths, revealing the Milky Way and galaxies in the background. Image credit: European Southern Observatory The photo shows the full field recorded in all three colours, approximately 6.5 x 6.7 arcmin 2. The frames were obtained in the B-band (600 sec exposure wavelength 429 nm FWHM 88 nm here rendered as blue), V-band (300 sec 554 nm 112 nm green) and R-band (120 sec 655 nm 165 nm red). It was produced from three images, obtained on February 1, 2000, with the FORS2 multi-mode instrument at the 8.2-m KUEYEN Unit Telescope and extracted from the VLT Science Archive Facility. It is based on three exposures in the visual part of the spectrum with the FORS2 multi-mode instrument at the 8.2-m KUEYEN telescope at Paranal. A near-infrared image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) provided astronomers with a better look at the nebula’s structure and the stars embedded within it as well as those located in the background.Ī reproduction of a composite colour image of the Horsehead Nebula and its immediate surroundings. The nebula’s clouds are very thick and block the light of any stars within and behind the nebula. The Horsehead Nebula is mostly composed of cold molecular hydrogen, which does not emit any light and radiates very little heat. The nebulous region that forms the horse’s head is part of a larger dust cloud that blocks the light from the star-forming region behind it. It can only be seen because its obscuring dust is backlit by the brighter nebula IC 434. The Horsehead Nebula formed from a collapse of an interstellar cloud of material and appears dark mainly because it consists of thick dust. First light for a newly commissioned telescope is a tremendously exciting time, and usually well-known astronomical objects such as this are captured to celebrate a new telescope commencing operations. This first light image from the Callisto telescope at the SPECULOOS Southern Observatory (SSO) shows the famous Horsehead Nebula. The nebula IC 434 was discovered by the German-born British astronomer William Herschel in 1786 and the Horsehead was first recorded a full century later, in the late 1800s. The Horsehead appears silhouetted against it. IC 434 is an active star-forming region located approximately 1,500 light-years away. The dark nebula appears along the edge of the large emission nebula IC 434. Its unusual shape and the colourful surroundings of the Orion’s Belt region make it a favourite for amateur astronomers. The Horsehead Nebula is one of the most popular astrophotography targets in the sky. Image: ESO and Digitized Sky Survey 2 (CC BY 4.0) The field of view is approximately three degrees. It was created from photographs in red and blue light forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2. The whole image is filled with glowing gas clouds illuminated by hot blue young stars. This spectacular visible light wide-field view of part of the famous belt of the great celestial hunter Orion shows the region of the sky around the Flame Nebula. The hot blue supergiant is located in the foreground and is not related to the Horsehead. The brighter star visible in this area of the sky in images is Alnitak (Zeta Orionis), the easternmost star of the Belt of Orion. The stars are less than 2 million years old. The brightest components are over 10 times more massive than the Sun and destined to go out as supernovae when they reach the end of their short life cycles. Image credit: T.A.Rector (NOIRLab/NSF/AURA) and Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA/NASA)Sigma Orionis is a multiple star system composed of exceptionally hot stars of the spectral types O, B, and A. This false-color image was created by combining emission-line images taken in hydrogen-alpha (red), oxygen (green) and sulfur (blue). Located in the constellation of Orion, the Hunter, the Horsehead is part of a dense cloud of gas in front of an active star-forming nebula known as IC434. This exceptional image of the Horsehead nebula was taken at the National Science Foundation’s 0.9-meter telescope on Kitt Peak with the NOAO Mosaic CCD camera.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |