Horsehead Nebula

Resource added

Full description

Beside the name, as it should be fairly obvious, the Horsehead nebula is located in the constellation of Orion the Hunter. It is a dark nebula; that is, it is not “glowing” due to the light of stars embedded in it. It is a molecular cloud, meaning that is fairly cold and allows molecules to form. As such, it is conducive to star formation (dense, cold molecular clouds are star forming region). To the left there is a bright star (Alnitak) that can be seen as a “dagger” of bright light. The red background is Hydrogen gas “energized” by this stars.

Toward the bottom left there is a emission nebula (NGC 2023). Is is a rather nice contrast since it is glowing blue vs. the red background.

Comments

to view and add comments.

Annotations

No one has annotated a text with this resource yet.

Download image “Horsehead Nebula”
  • type
    Image
  • created on
  • file format
    png
  • file size
    16 MB
  • creator
    Marco Ciocca
  • publisher
    Eastern Kentucky University
  • publisher place
    Richmond, KY
  • restrictions
    Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License
  • rights
    Copyright © 2023 by Marco Ciocca. EKU Observatory Images is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.