APOD 3.6

NGC1999: South of Orion (24 February 2011)

This is a picture south of the Orion Nebula. This reflection nebula is known as NGC 1999. 1,500 light-years away is the star V380 Orionis that illuminates this nebula. In the center of the bluish colored nebula, you can see a dark shaped sideways T. It spans over 10 light years. This empty space was discovered by Herschel. At first, he thought it was black because it was a dense cloud of dust and gas that was blocking light from coming through. When he looked at it with his infrared telescope, which are supposed to be able to see through these clouds, it was still black. This surprised him. It was determined that it was actually not a dense pocket of gas and it seemed like something had actually blown a hole right through the cloud.

This is the first time astronomers had seen something like this. They think the cause of the hole was from narrow jets of gas from some of the young stars in the region. Those jets of gas must have punctured the sheet of dust and gas and nearby a mature star with powerful radiation may have also helped create this whole. The jets and outflows created by the nebula's young stars also create shock waves. These shocks appear bright red in this picture. These stellar jets and outflows come through at speeds of hundreds of km/sec. This was really interesting because relating what we have learned in class, it shows the nature of newborn stars and how powerful they are. Something like this sound pretty normal, but it turns out it was actually a big deal when astronomers discovered this hole in the nebula. It really shows how astronomers and scientists try to learn from every single thing they see.