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Clearest Photos Ever Of Horsehead Nebula

Posted by Hemos on from the looking-deeply-into-the-continium dept.

angkor writes "A new composite image created from high-res photographs. Wow, just wow. You can see it at SpaceFlightNow."

8 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. very nice but... by uncadonna · · Score: 3, Interesting

    there's an important piece of information missing.

    In looking at this I'd appreciate some knowledge of the physical scale of the phenomenon, not in arc-seconds of sky image but in kilometers of extent of the feature.

    It must be enormous, but how enormous? Anyone?

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    mt
    1. Re:very nice but... by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 3, Interesting
      It's pretty strange how a physical process can work at different scales: turbulent mixing, in this case.

      This cloud that is light-years across could be mistaken for a tiny puff of muddy water a couple of millimeters in diameter. The ratio in volume between the two systems would be something like 10^57, but they look almost identical.

  2. Egyptians... by BoarderPhreak · · Score: 3, Interesting
    As a somewhat wannabe Egyptologist, I can't help but wonder if there isn't something up there in the nebula or in Orion that might just give up yet another secret.

    It's common knowledge by now that the ancient Egyptians tried to recreate Heaven on Earth - look at the positioning and size of the pyramids on the Giza plateau as compared to the constellation of Orion's Belt. Even the Milky Way is represented by the Nile in the bigger picture.

    I keep expecting to see Kheops' face in the nebula or something...

  3. Re:European Southern Observatory by DrSkwid · · Score: 2, Interesting

    /. puts arbitrary spaces in long words to prevent trolls from "upsetting" the layout of the comments page

    this breaks plain text urls and it is often better to include the href

    of course now trolls can put an href with innocent text and it goes to goatse

    the new [domain.com] suffix to urls entry is ok but of course trolls quickly noticed that you can put

    http://www.yahoo.com/redirector?http://goatse

    and it shows up as [yahoo.com]

    (just an example - it doesn't actually redirect)

    it's a never ending arms race for sure!

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    There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
  4. And driven by open source software ... by hobbs · · Score: 2, Interesting

    While the images are truly beautiful, I also wanted to note that ESO's VLT system is driven by Tcl/Tk (95% of the UI for the instruments are Tk-based, with Tcl being the scripting glue language for the instruments, connecting C++ libraries). While the machines are mostly HP-UX, they are transitioning to Linux (they are almost wholy a non-MS shop).

  5. What does it look like? Nothing. by willybur · · Score: 3, Interesting

    To quote _The Astronomy Cafe_, by Sten Odenwald, page 111, question 186:

    186 Would a nebula look colorful if you traveled into it?

    Interstellar space is filled with a thin gas, and in some places this gas forms clouds. When stars form in these gas clouds, they light up the cloud, forming spectacular nebulosities of colored light as the gases in the cloud are stimulated by the light from the individual stars. Although nebulas like the ones in Plates 2 and 7 [in the book] are lovely and colorful, you would see nothing at all if you were inside one because the gases are so spread out in space and there is no blank sky against which to see the contrast. At a density of only a few hundred atoms per cubic centimeter, most nebulas are better than the best vacuums we can make on Earth, and as such, it would be impossible to see anything of their color if you were inside one of them. I am always amused by movies that portray a starship inside or very near a very colorful nebula or with background skies swirling with color. In reality, nature is far less colorful, and even the Great Nebula in Orion, with all of its color, would be almost invisible from inside.

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    "Everybody wants a rock to wind a piece of string around." - They Might Be Giants, "We Want a Rock"
  6. In a few hundred years.... by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In a few hundred years it may look nothing like a horse. Space clouds move. A few hundred years ago somebody named the "Keyhole Nebula". Now the keyhole shape is gone.

    All the names we give to these things will be obsolete. We will have to go back to calling them NGC3098239874 or whatever.

    I will mostly miss the flipping finger shape from one of those Hubble images. I forgot which nebula it was, but I would love a poster of the finger section. Anybody remember where the "Finger Nebula" was? Much more intruging than the Mars Face.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  7. Re:space is pink by Squeak · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Most star light (and nebula glow through either reflected star light, or absorbed and re-emitted star light) is at two wavelengths, approx 650nm and 500nm. From memory, these correspond to the hydrogen alpha and oxygen III lines.
    The dark adapted human eye loses a lot of its colour sensitivity, so images seen at night tend to be 'black and white', but even so, it is much more sensitive at 500 than 650nm. This is why nebula such as M42/43 (The 'Great' Orion nebula) and the nearby Horsehead nebula look to be a pale blue-green to the eye. The types of colour film used in astrophotography, and CCD cameras, are highly sensitive to 650nm, but 500nm falls into the less sensitive area between two of the colour emulsion layers of film. This means that photographs come out pink.

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    This sig is a figment of your imagination.