New Planetary Systems In The Orion Nebula

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Hubblecast 32: Born in Beauty - Proplyds in the Orion Nebula.

Visible to the naked eye, only 1500 light-years from Earth, the great Orion Nebula has been known and revered since ancient times.

A popular target of Hubble, researchers have now identified 42 new discs within it that could be the beginnings of new planetary systems like our own.

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14-Dec-2009: A collection of 30 never-before-released images of embryonic planetary systems in the Orion Nebula are the highlight of the longest single Hubble Space Telescope project ever dedicated to the topic of star and planet formation.

Also known as proplyds, or protoplanetary discs, these modest blobs surrounding baby stars are shedding light on the mechanism behind planet formation. Only the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, with its high resolution and sensitivity, can take such detailed pictures of circumstellar discs at optical wavelengths.

Looking like a graceful watercolour painting, the Orion Nebula is one of the most photogenic objects in space and one of the Hubble Space Telescope's favourite targets. As newborn stars emerge from the nebula's mixture of gas and dust, protoplanetary discs, also known as proplyds, form around them: the centre of the spinning disc heats up and becomes a new star, but remnants around the outskirts of the disc attract other bits of dust and clump together.

Proplyds are thought to be young planetary systems in the making. In an ambitious survey of the familiar nebula using Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), researchers have discovered 42 protoplanetary discs.

Visible to the naked eye, the Orion Nebula has been known since ancient times, but was first described in the early 17th century by the French astronomer Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc — who is given credit for discovering it. At 1500 light-years away, the nebula, also known as Messier 42, is the closest star-forming region to Earth with stars massive enough to heat up the surrounding gas, setting it ablaze with colour, and making the region stand out to stargazers.

Learn more: http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/html/heic0917.html

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Hubblecast features news and Images from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).

The space-based observatory is a collaboration between NASA and ESA. The observations are carried out in visible, infrared and ultraviolet light. In many ways Hubble has revolutionised modern astronomy.

The Hubble Space Telescope has made some of the most dramatic discoveries in the history of astronomy. From its vantage point 600 km above the Earth, Hubble can detect light with "eyes" five times sharper than the best ground-based telescopes and looks deep into space where some of the most profound mysteries are still buried in the mists of time.

Hubble European Space Agency Information Centre
Garching/Munich, Germany
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Dr. J is a German astronomer at the ESO. His scientific interests are in cosmology, particularly on galaxy evolution and quasars. Dr. J's real name is Joe Liske and he has a PhD in astronomy.

• http://www.eso.org/~jliske/
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[Athaeus]

I love Hublecast/ESOcast!

[Heroasango]

Awesome!

Thanks for sharing!

[1524633a]

@joshnc101 what about the people who encounter actual demonds or "ghosts". i know plenty of people who have had physical encounters . im not really religious but i find it really ignorant of you to say that a persons beliefe is ignorant. its no more rediculous than believing that the earth and the universe came from nowhere. if the member is preaching to you its because he truely believes in what he was told and experienced and cares about you. but to call it ignorance is disrespectful.

[btwbrand]

@joshnc101 I know what you are saying. The thing you need to consider is those people believe all the new things we are discovering and learning about were created in the transition cycles we observe them in. So for instance we know our moon was damaged in the past by many many many collisions with objects of all sizes, and is now pockmarked. It's their belief the moon was created with most if not all of the marks, not that they occurred over time. This thinking makes everything new acceptable

[joshnc101]

@btwbrand Have a family member who is EXTREMELY religious, she buys into that whole "Garden of Eden is where we came from, the earth was made in 6 days and is 6,000 years old" BS. It boggles my mind on how people can believe those stupid fairy tales when we are clearly seeing examples out their on how our sun and planets came be! I won't advocate getting rid of religion entirely even tho I'm an atheist, but I can't wait for the day when this level of ignorance totally goes away!

[ferrarimike23]

Yeah just because the universe is expanding slowly dosnt mean there was a big bang dumbass

That theory sounds rediculous

[MrAwesomesauce101]

@BGSoccerMagic fail then explian why the universe keeps exspanding slowly ahhhh a big bang dumb ass

[traog]

@XxUndeniedxX It was discovered by Nicholas Peiresc in 1610, previous to that it had been classed as a star, Theta Orionis.

[XxUndeniedxX]

@traog Whether you live near a city, or in the middle of the sticks, I guarentee that there is some light source that is inhibiting your ability to see this clearly with the naked eye. Astronomers have been staring at the Orion Nebula for 5,000 years. Who do you think named it, and first saw it? Did they have the sophisticated telescopes that we have now? Of course not.

[traog]

As stated in a previous post I don't live near any city and I can see Orion quite well.

Tonight happens to be clear and it's a new moon so I took my spotting scope out to see what I could see.

Even at about 40X magnification all that can be seen is a somewhat hazy starry patch It is nothing like what is shown at the beginning of this video.

[BGSoccerMagic]

There was no Big bang. The Big Bang theory is just another hoax, this time scientific, about the existence of a Creator.

[BGSoccerMagic]

actually we can but in order to do so the person needs to be far away from the big city lights as Orion nebula is quite faint. that was not an issue back in those ancient times,