Messier 42 was possibly discovered 1610 by Nicholas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc and was recorded by by Johann Baptist Cysatus, Jesuit astronomer, in 1611. “But they possess most of the physical properties and structure of gas giant planets,” added Lucas. Instead, they formed “like stars via the collapse of a cloud of cold gas,” explained Lucas. Roche said that the 13 objects “probably formed in a different way from the planets in our solar system” in that they were not made “out of the residue of material left over from the birth of the sun.” But these planets don’t orbit a star the same way our solar system’s planets orbit the Sun… they simply roam around. From the measured brightness and the known distance to the Orion nebula, we knew they did not have enough material for any nuclear processing in their interiors.” Orion’s Horsehead Nebula Credit & Copyright Ryan Steinberg & Family, Adam Block, NOAO, AURA, NSFĬhances are very good these planets may be failed stars – much like our own Jupiter. “The objects are likely to be large gas planets similar in size to Jupiter and consisting primarily of hydrogen and helium. They were found with the Hubble Space Telescope while looking for faint stars and brown dwarfs. These rare, “free-floating” objects were confirmed by Patrick Roche of the University of Oxford and Philip Lucas of the University of Hertfordshire just before the turn of the century. What else have we learned about the Great Orion nebula in recent years? Try the discovery of 13 drifting gas planets. O’Dell was fortunate enough to use Hubble to map Orion’s stellar winds and create a map of two of Orion’s three star-forming regions… Regions where the winds have been blowing continuously for nearly 1,500 years!
“When you look closely, you see that the nebula is filled with hundreds of visible shock waves,” said Bob O’Dell, an astronomer from Vanderbilt University. The Trapezium’s stellar winds also are responsible for the formation of stars inside the nebula – their shock waves compressing the medium and igniting starbirth. A tremendous X-ray source (2U0525-06) is quite near the Trapezium and hints at the possibility of a black hole present within M42. Credit and copyright: César Cantú.Īlthough M42 may have been luminous for as long as 23,000 years, it is possible that new stars are still forming, while others were ejected by gravitation – known as “runaway” stars. Each one tells a story of stellar winds from young stars that impact the environment and the material ejected from other stars.” The star Alnitak and Flame Nebula in Orion. “In this bowl of stars we see the entire formation history of Orion printed into the features of the nebula: arcs, blobs, pillars and rings of dust that resemble cigar smoke. Said Massimo Roberto, an astronomer at the Space Science Telescope Institute in Baltimore: The rate of expansion at the outer edges may be caused by radiation from the very youngest stars present. The “Great Nebula’s” many different regions move at varying speeds. While studying M42, you’ll note the apparent turbulence of the area – and with good reason. “Orion may seem very peaceful on a cold winter night, but in reality it holds very massive, luminous stars that are destroying the dusty gas cloud from which they formed,” said Tom Megeath, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. There are also “flare stars,” whose rapid variations in brightness mean an ever changing view.
Associated with these objects are a great number of faint red stars and erratically luminous variables – young stars, possibly of the T Tauri type. Appearing like “knots,” these Herbig-Haro objects are thought to be stars in the earliest stages of condensation. The Trapezium itself belongs to a faint cluster of stars now approaching main sequence and resides in an area of the nebula known as the “Huygenian Region” (named after 17th century astronomer and optician Christian Huygens who first observed it in detail).īuried amidst the bright ribbons and curls of this cloud of predominately hydrogen gas are many star forming regions. Credit: Bob KingĪt the heart of this immense region is an area known as the “Trapezium” – its four brightest stars form perhaps the most celebrated multiple star system in the night sky. Although the stars aren’t related, they form a delightfully curvy line-of-sight pattern. A pair of binoculars will make the “Curlicue” pop in Orion’s Belt. For most observers, it appears to have a slight greenish color – caused by oxygen being stripped of electrons by radiation from nearby stars. M42 is a great cloud of gas spanning more than 20,000 times the size of our own solar system and its light is mainly florescent. Known as “The Great Orion Nebula,” let’s learn what makes it glow.
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