The Orion Nebula

Orion is the grandiose constellation dominating the southern part of the sky. The Orion Nebula is considered an emission glowing nebula, which is below the so-called "belt" of this constellation. It is on this "belt" that you can easily find Orion on the horizon. It consists of three blue and white stars: Mintaka, Alnil, Alnitak. All of them are located on the same line and at equal angular distances from each other. This constellation is also remarkable because it contains many giant bright stars. One star of Orion seems a bit blurry. When observing it, a foggy spot is clearly visible in the telescope. This is what is called the "Great Orion Nebula", which is a gigantic cloud of red-hot, glowing gas.

The size of this gas cloud can be judged from the fact that it would have produced 10,000 stars such as the Sun. Such a small Orion nebula seems only because it is located 1340 light-years from Earth . The glowing gas surrounds several hot young stars on the edge of a giant molecular interstellar cloud. The whole system of clouds of this nebula, including the Horsehead Nebula, will be scattered throughout the universe for 100,000 years.

Astronomers consider the area around the constellation of Orion the most beautiful in the sky. This diffuse nebula is the brightest. Its surface, which extends almost 80x60 arc minutes, is four times larger than the total moon area and due to the brightness of about 4 star magnitude (the stellar magnitude is an indicator characterizing the illumination created by the celestial object) has good visibility in the night sky. The location on the celestial equator makes it possible to see it practically anywhere in the world. This space object has in its diameter about 30 light years. The telescope shows that in its northern part there is a darkened strip of dust that separates the northeastern part of the nebula from its main part.

The Orion Nebula was first described in detail in 1656 by H. Huygens, although her discovery is erroneously attributed to the German scientist I. Tsizat. Some remain supporters of the version that it was discovered by the French astronomer NC. Fabry de Peiresc.

Thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA scientists discovered a protoplanetary disk that is located in the central region of the nebula called Trapezium. This area received this name thanks to 4 massive stars, which are located in the form of a trapezoid. Nebula is an active neighborhood of very young stars, hot gas and dust. Powerful sources of blue glow in the center of it are the four brightest stars of Trapezium. Such a bright glow gives a reflection of their own light from cosmic dust and radiation from ionized gas. Dark brown dust fibers cover a large area of the nebula. In the lower part of the nebula there are several substar objects - brown dwarfs.

This nebula has an extremely bright part in the center. Its so-called wings are characterized by a rapidly decreasing brightness. In the place of the convergence of the wings, there is a dark dip, which because of its characteristic pattern is called "Fish mouth". In front of the wings, on clear nights, you can see a straight strip called the Sword. The western soft part of the Orion Nebula is called "Sail".

The Orion Nebula is located within our Galaxy at a distance of 350 pc from the Sun. Although the laboratory vacuum is denser than a given nebula millions of times, its total mass is enormous.

This space formation has been observed by earthlings for thousands of years. Many scientists speak about the discovered facts confirming that the Mayan people around the stars of this nebula made up the Mayan calendar known to the whole world.