- NASA’s powerful Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope have teamed up to capture stunning images of the Orion Nebula.
- The nebula, which is a massive mixture of different gases and heated matter around young stars, was shot at different wavelengths.
- The image looks like a painting, but it is actually something that exists, reminding us how beautiful the space can be.
Well, the new year is officially here, and while many places that traditionally celebrate the birth of a new 365-day batch have had to cancel their annual fireworks, you can always count on NASA to find some fireworks. which happens somewhere in the cosmos. In a new blog post, NASA chose to highlight an amazing image, which is actually a combination of observations made by both the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope.
The image is of the Orion Nebula, a massive collection of gases that revolves around very young but very large stars. The two telescopes captured the same image at different wavelengths of light, giving us a glimpse of this region of space as we have never seen it before.
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Nebulae are incredibly interesting features of the cosmos, as they are essentially the ingredients that make up the star systems and galaxies, but have not yet been fully combined into objects such as planets and stars. In this case, the Orion Nebula has already given rise to a small number of stars, but they are very young.
NASA explains:
Hydrogen, sulfur and hydrocarbon gas swirls link a collection of infant stars in this composite image of the Orion Nebula, as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope. Together, the two telescopes expose carbon-rich molecules in the cosmic cloud of this star-forming plant located 1,500 light-years away.
Hubble’s ultraviolet and visible light reveals hydrogen and sulfur gas that have been heated and ionized by intense ultraviolet radiation from massive stars, collectively known as “Trapezoids.” Meanwhile, Spitzer’s infrared vision exposes carbon-rich molecules in the cloud. Together, the telescopes expose the stars in Orion like a rainbow of dots sprinkled throughout the image.
It is impossible to say what the next few billion years will bring, but if the nebula remains undisturbed by external forces, it will probably continue to form stars and, potentially, planets, moons and asteroids that will orbit them. We don’t know how much material is really present here or what kind of planets and stars it can produce in the future, but for now it remains a very interesting area of the sky.
The study of such areas, and especially the Orion Nebula, has given scientists some powerful insights into the forces that build the objects we see in the cosmos. It will continue to be observed for many years, decades and maybe even centuries to come and will probably teach us much more.