It is one of the most amazing sights you can see with the naked eye in the night sky. Now imaged by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
The Orion Nebula, also known as M42, is said to be the home of newly born stars, that is, the cradle of stars. It is the closest such region to us in the universe, and may be where our star, the Sun, formed 4 to 5 billion years ago.
A diffuse cloud of gas and dust about 1,300 light-years away, this brightest nebula is part of Orion’s Sword, which hangs from Orion’s belt.
on September 12thpublicThe resulting image is a place heated by starlight that is both beautiful and complex, yet so simple.
The images shown were created by separating and synthesizing different wavelengths of reflected light from ionized gases, hydrocarbons, molecular gases, dust and scattered starlight using filters in JWST’s NIRCam (near-infrared camera) instrument. .
The Orion Bar is visible in the image at the top of this article. It’s a dense ridge of gas and dust illuminated by the young giant stars of the nearby Trapezium star cluster (slightly out of the image).
The inner region of the Orion Nebula as seen by the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam instrument (Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA; Data Analysis: PDRS4ALL ERS Team; Graphics Processing: S. FUENMAYOR and O. BERNÉ)
Astronomers call regions of the universe that have been exposed to the ultraviolet (UV) radiation (or, more simply, heated by starlight) of giant young stars photodissociation regions (PDRs).
The PDR is of great interest because it is a great place to look for clues about how stars and planets are formed.
The main image shows four stunning cosmic vistas below (annotated in the image above).
A baby star in its cocoon (top right): A disk of gas and dust around a young star called HST-10 that may be about to become a planet.
・Filament (bottom right): A winding filament rich in hydrocarbon molecules, which in the image is mostly molecular hydrogen.
θ2 Orionis A (center): A multiple binary star system whose light illuminates the dust from below.
A baby star in a globule (middle left): A cloud of gravitationally unstable gas and dust collides and is sucked into a slowly growing ’embryo’ before becoming a glowing fusion reactor.
Orion Nebula: JWST (right) vs Hubble Space Telescope (HST) (left) (Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, PDRS4ALL ERS team. Image processing: OLIVIER BERNÉ. HST image credit: NASA/STSCI/RICE UNIV./C .O’DELL ET AL. – PROGRAM ID: PRC95-45A.)
All images were produced by the Photo-Dissociation Regions For All Early Science Release (PDRs4All ERS) team. A group of scholars studying these hot, ionized environments with the most advanced telescopes in human history.
–Sword of Orion–
In addition to comparing images of the region previously captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, last week the PDRs4All team used the W.M. Keck Observatory on the Big Island of Hawaii to photograph the Orion Bar.
Compare the Keck Observatory image and the Hubble image below.
Left: Mosaic image of Orion Bar by Hubble Space Telescope (Credit: NASA/STScI/Rice Univ./C.O’Dell et al.) Right: Substructure of protoplanetary body revealed by NIRC2 camera at Keck Observatory (Credit: NASA/STScI/Rice Univ./C.O’Dell et al.) Credit: Habart et al./WM Keck Observatory)
A team from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), using the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, shows the region of Orion’s Sword (more specifically Orion Bar) is bombarded with intense radiation from a young, massive star. But the most detailed infrared image ever taken from Mauna Kea.
“Looking at the photodissociation region (PDR) is like looking back into our past,” said Emily Hubbert, associate professor at the Institute for Space Astrophysics at the University of Paris-Sacre and the study’s lead author. Said. “These regions are important because they help us understand how young stars affect the gas and dust where they are born, especially in the regions where stars like the Sun form.”
The image above (on the right) helped the team prepare the JWST image you see here.
As a bonus, the PDRs4All ERS team also shared an incredibly beautiful image of the northern region of the Orion Nebula, once again showing amazing filaments.
Northern region of M42 observed by NIRCam detector A during Orion Bar observations (Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Data analysis: PDRS4ALL ERS team, Graphic processing: S. FUENMAYOR)
The Orion Nebula can be seen with the naked eye if you wake up an hour before dawn and look up in the eastern sky. Inside the “Hunter” of Orion.
It looks like a hazy speck of diffused light, and is right by Alnitak, Alninum, and Mintaka, three stars in Orion’s belt located between the red star Betelgeuse and the blue star Rigel. Although you can see it with the naked eye, the best way to see the Orion Nebula is with binoculars or a small telescope.
Wishing for clear skies and big eyes.