Orion Nebula :: Essays Papers

Orion NebulaThe Orion Nebula contains one of the brightest star clunks in the night sky. With a magnitude of 4, this nebula is easily visible from the Northern Hemisphere during the winter months. It is surprising, therefore, that this region was not documented until 1610 by a French lawyer named Nicholas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc. On March 4, 1769, Charles Messier inducted the Orion Nebula, M42, into his list of star(predicate) objects. Then, in 1771, Messier released his list of objects for its first publication in Memoires de lAcademie.1The Orion Nebula is one of the closest stellar regions to the Earth. Using parallax measurements, it has been estimated that this nebula is only 1,500 light years away. In addition, the Orion Nebula is a relatively young star cluster, with an approximate age of less than one million years. It has even been speculated that some of the younger stars within the cluster are only 300,000 years old.The Orion Nebula is an emission nebula because of the O-type and B-type stars contained within it. These high-temperature stars emit ultraviolet (UV) light that ionizes the surrounding hydrogen atoms into protons (H+) and electrons (e-). When the protons and electrons recombine, the electrons enter a higher susceptibility level (n=3). Then, when the electron drops from the n=3 level to the n=2 level, an Hphoton is emitted. 2 This photon has a wavelength of 6563 , and therefore corresponds to the red portion of the visible spectrum. It is these H photons which give the nebula the distinctive red color which we see. The extreme brightness of the O-type and B-type stars, coupled with the Earths atmosphere, has always made high-resolution imaging of the star-forming region difficult. yet new-fangled advances in adaptive optics and the repair of the Hubble Space Telescope have allowed for incredible detail into the center of the dust cloud. 3 The technological advances have excessively helped reveal several faint star s within the center of the nebula. The Orion Nebula is a spectacular sight. Consequently, it has been a preferred target of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) over recent years. The HST has provided a great deal of insight into the complicated process of star formation. In June of 1994, C.