One of the most beautiful areas of the night sky is in the constellation Orion.
Between the stars Alnitak, Saif and Rigel, floats a large dense cloud of interstellar dust and gas. It is the Orion Nebula, alive with the material from which young stars are born and one of the most studied and photographed objects in the Milky Way.
Extension 24 light years. It is so close and large that it can be seen with the naked eye.
Because of its relative proximity (about 1,344 light-years from the Sun), this remarkable cloud is an important laboratory for understanding star formation.
Just zoom in on the image and take a good look at the details.
New Hubble image of the Orion Nebula, HH 505 (ESA/Hubble and NASA, J. Bally, MH Ozarach)
This new version of the Hubble image of the Orion Nebula looks like wisps of a cloud of delicate colors making the cloud softly against the dark velvet background of space… But in the middle is a rare cosmic interaction and wonderful, launched by the young star IX Ori.
This reaction, called HH 505, is what is known as the Herbig-Haro organism. Its formation requires a set of very special conditions.
First, you need a baby star. This knot forms when a dense knot in a molecular cloud, such as a stellar Orion nursery, collapses and spins under its own mass. As it spins, it rolls up material from the surrounding cloud, allowing the young star to grow.
When this material accumulates in the young star, powerful jets of plasma can be released from the star’s poles. Some of the material orbiting the star is thought to drift along the star’s outer magnetic field lines to the poles. These magnetic field lines act as a particle accelerator, so that when matter reaches the poles, it is released at incredible speeds.
The yellow circle shows the location of HH 505 within the Orion Nebula. (NASA, European Space Agency, M. Roberto / STSCI)
The Herbig-Haro object forms when these jets, traveling at incredibly high speeds, collide hard with the surrounding gas, heating it until it glows brightly. This creates what appear to be bright bars of light emanating from the young star.
These structures change rapidly, so astronomers can study them to understand how young stars blast material away from the surrounding cloud. This cuts off the supply of gas and dust that fuels the growing stars and limits the size of the adult star.
Could this incredible piece of heaven be any more beautiful?
The new image can be downloaded in wallpaper sizes from the Hubble website.