Hubble Panoramic View of Orion Nebula Reveals Thousands of Stars

*Description*: A new image from NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes looks more like an abstract painting than a cosmic snapshot. The magnificent masterpiece shows the Orion nebula in an explosion of infrared, ultraviolet and visible-light colors. It was "painted" by hundreds of baby stars on a canvas of gas and dust, with intense ultraviolet light and strong stellar winds as brushes. At the heart of the artwork is a set of four monstrously massive stars, collectively called the Trapezium. These behemoths are approximately 100,000 times brighter than our sun. Their community can be identified as the yellow smudge near the center of the composite. The swirls of green were revealed by Hubble's ultraviolet and visible-light detectors. They are hydrogen and sulfur gases heated by intense ultraviolet radiation from the Trapezium's stars. Wisps of red, also detected by Spitzer, indicate infrared light from illuminated clouds containing carbon-rich molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. On Earth, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are found on burnt toast and in automobile exhaust. Additional stars in Orion are sprinkled throughout the image in a rainbow of colors. Spitzer exposed infant stars deeply embedded in a cocoon of dust and gas (orange-yellow dots). Hubble found less embedded stars (specks of green) and stars in the foreground (blue). Stellar winds from clusters of newborn stars scattered throughout the cloud etched all of the well-defined ridges and cavities. Located 1,500 light-years away from Earth, the Orion nebula is the brightest star in the sword of the hunter constellation. The cosmic cloud is also our closest massive star-formation factory, and astronomers suspect that it contains about 1,000 young stars. The Orion constellation can be seen in the fall and winter night skies from northern latitudes. The constellation's nebula is invisible to the unaided eye, but can be resolved with binoculars or small telescopes. This image is a false-color composite, in which light detected at wavelengths of 0.43, 0.50, and 0.53 microns is blue. Light with wavelengths of 0.6, 0.65, and 0.91 microns is green. Light of 3.6 microns is orange, and 8-micron light is red. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, also in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. The Institute is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., Washington. For more information, contact: Ray Villard, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md. (phone) 410-338-4514 Whitney Clavin, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. (phone) 818-354-4673 Technical facts about this news release: About the Object Object Name: Orion Nebula (M42, NGC 1976) Object Description: Emission Nebula Position (J2000): R.A. 05h 35m 17s Dec. -05° 23' 28" Constellation: Orion Distance: The distance to the Orion Nebula is 1,500 light-years (460 parsecs). Dimensions: The image is 30 arcminutes (13 light-years or 4.0 parsecs) square. About the Data Data Description: The Hubble image was created from HST data from proposal 10246: M. Robberto (STScI/ESA), C.R. O'Dell (Vanderbilt University), L.A. Hillenbrand (Caltech), M. Simon (SUNY Stony Brook), P. McCullough (STScI), J. Krist (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), F. Palla (Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri), M. Romaniello (ESO ? Germany), J. Najita (NOAO/AURA), E.D. Feigelson (The Pennsylvania State University), R. Makidon (STScI), J. Stauffer (Jet Propulsion Laboratory); N. Panagia, I.N. Reid, D.R. Soderblom, and E. Bergeron (STScI); and K.G. Stassun (Vanderbilt University). The Hubble data was superimposed onto a ground-based image taken from the 2.2 meter telescope at the European Southern Observatory ? La Silla. Instrument: ACS ESO MPI 2.2m La Silla WFI Exposure Date(s): October 2004 - April 2005 December 11, 2001 Filters: F435W ("B") F555W ("V") F658N (Ha) F775W ("i") F850LP("z") ESO842 ("B") ESO856 (Ha) ESO857 ([S II]) ESO859 ([O III]) About the Image Image Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA), and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team Release Date: January 11, 2006 Color: This image is a composite mosaic of many separate expposures made by the ACS instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope and the ESO La Silla 2.2 meter telescope using several different filters isolating the light of specific elements or of specific broad wavelength ranges. The color arises by assigning different hues (colors), to each monochromatic image. In this case, the colors are: HST: F658N Ha red/orange F850LP "z" red F775W "i" red F555W "V" green F435W "B" blue ESO MPI 2.2m La Silla WFI Dec. 11, 2001: NB#Halpha/7_ESO856 Ha red NB#SIIr/8_ESO857 [S II] red NB#OIII/8_ESO859 [O III] green BB#B/99_ESO842 "B" blue Compass/Scale: Hubble's Sharpest View of the Orion Nebula [ http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/2006/01/images/a/formats/compass_large_web.jpg ] What is an American Astronomical Society Meeting release? A major news announcement issued at an American Astronomical Society meeting, the premier astronomy conference. In one of the most detailed astronomical images ever produced, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured an unprecedented look at the Orion Nebula. This turbulent star formation region is one of astronomy's most WATCH: HubbleMinute Video Hubble Minute: Hubble Snaps the Clearest View of the Orion Nebula Hubble Minute: Hubble Snaps the Clearest View of the Orion Nebula [ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2006/01/video/a/ ] READ: Junior version of this article Amazing Space Learn about this story in the Star Witness, a science newspaper available on our sister site, Amazing Space. [ http://amazing-space.stsci.edu/news/archive/2006/01/ ] dramatic and photogenic celestial objects. More than 3,000 stars of various sizes appear in this image. Some of them have never been seen in visible light. These stars reside in a dramatic dust-and-gas landscape of plateaus, mountains, and valleys that are reminiscent of the Grand Canyon. The Orion Nebula is a picture book of star formation, from the massive, young stars that are shaping the nebula to the pillars of dense gas that may be the homes of budding stars. Read more: * NASA Press Release [ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2006/01/text/ ] * The Full Story [ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2006/01/full/ ] *News Release Number:*: STScI-2006-01q
NASA Identifier: SPD-HUBBLE-STScI-2006-01q