The Orion Nebula fires “bullets” the size of our solar system
Alasdair Wilkins
The Orion Nebula, as the closest site of massive ongoing star formation to Earth, has long been one of the most intensely studied objects in the night sky. But it still holds mysteries, including these “bullets” emanating from its centre.
The so-called bullets are the blue regions in the above photograph, which was taken by the Gemini South telescope in Chile. These dense, mysterious objects are ripping through the hydrogen clouds at supersonic speeds, and no one is exactly sure why. Most likely, these bullets were created less than a thousand years ago from a mysterious source inside the cloud known as IRc2. This particular image is a close-up image taken in the infrared spectrum, although we’re still not getting too close to the bullets, considering just how huge they really are. NASA explains:
Blasted out by energetic massive star formation the bullets, relatively dense, hot gas clouds about ten times the size of Pluto’s orbit, are blue in the false color image. Glowing with the light of ionized iron atoms they travel at speeds of hundreds of kilometers per second, their passage traced by yellowish trails of the nebula’s shock-heated hydrogen gas. The cone-shaped wakes are up to a fifth of a light-year long. The detailed image was created using the 8.1 meter Gemini South telescope in Chile with a newly commisioned adaptive optics system (GeMS). Achieving a larger field of view than previous generation adaptive optics, GeMS uses five laser generated guide stars to help compensate for the blurring effects of planet Earth’s atmosphere.
For more awesome images like this, check out NASA’s Astronomy Photo of the Day.
Photo credit: Nasa
As seen on http://io9.com
Share by Email
Jan 17, 2013 @ 10:00:59
This year we have one requirement – to learn two cosmic laws: the first one is to love our planet and the universe, and the second is to learn that only our thought creates our world, destiny and our future.
_________
Planet Earth will be equipped with a help of the more evolved universe to step into 4D, and we will endure everything: cold, heat, disasters, crises and UFOs.Listen only to your heart and be constructive, not destructive, aggressive or fearful.Let us be positively active about the people around us, the planet and the universe. This year we have one requirement – to learn two cosmic laws: the first one is to love our planet and the universe, and the second is to learn that only our thought creates our world, destiny and our future. This will be ordered "officially" by the Galactic Federation, the most powerful governing and administrative body of the Milky Way, which will be ridiculed by many on the planet in 2013, by saying that it is nonsense, nebulous, stupid and nonexistent… but we'll see, time will tell whether it does exist or not! Thus, let us take a positive attitude and unite with similar people on the planet, because it is the only way to learn faster and make evolutionary progress in this stormy, but very crucial times.Times in which the all of us live together on planet Earth.The higher universe, into which all of us are going to sail, without exception in 2013, expects that from us and it tells us clearly by powerful fusion of our human consciousness with the alien presence on this planet and around it, unprecedentedly.Trust the universe that this is indeed the truth! READ MORE:
http://buyoriginalart-serbia.page.tl/Galactic-Federation.htm