影像提供: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto (STScI/ESA) and
The Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team
Explanation:
Few cosmic vistas excite the imagination like the Orion Nebula. Also known as M42, the nebula's glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1,500 light-years away. The Orion Nebula offers one of the best opportunities to study how stars are born partly because it is the nearest large star-forming region, but also because the nebula's energetic stars have blown away obscuring gas and dust clouds that would otherwise block our view - providing an intimate look at a range of ongoing stages of starbirth and evolution. This detailed image of the Orion Nebula is the sharpest ever, constructed using data from the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys and the European Southern Observatory's La Silla 2.2 meter telescope. The mosaic contains a billion pixels at full resolution and reveals about 3,000 stars. In apparent size, the picture is as large as the Full Moon. At the distance of M42 it spans thirteen light-years.
說明:
很少天體能像獵戶座大星雲這麼能激發人類的想像力。又名為M42的獵戶座大星雲，位在離我們只有1500光年遠一個龐大分子雲團的邊緣，內部的光亮雲氣包圍著熾熱的年輕亮星。離我們相當近的獵戶座大星雲，是天文學家研究恆星誕生過程的最佳標的之一。此外，恆星誕生區通常會阻礙我們視線的不透光雲氣和塵埃雲，已經被獵戶座大星雲熾熱恆星的恆星風給吹跑了，讓處在不同誕生及演化階段的恆星能被仔細檢視。上面這張獵戶座大星雲是有史以來最高解析度的一幅，組成這幅影像數據的來源是哈伯太空望遠鏡的先進巡天相機及歐洲南天天文台的La Silla2.2米望遠鏡。這張組合影像的最高解析度版本含有十億個像素及三千顆星。在人類的視覺裡，這幅影像視野的張角和滿月相當，在M42所在的距離影像涵蓋了13光年的天區。作者: john0513 時間: 2008-11-9 01:50 AM
