NASA Just Released the Most Detailed 3D Tour of Orion Nebula
You must, in worst case, have at least heard of Orion Nebula! Its one of the nearest & brightest object in the night sky. Its so huge that, you can see it even with naked eyes & with presence of little light pollution. The tour, I’m talking about, is of the same object.
Nebula’s are way more interesting than most of the other celestial objects. If you’re concerned about nebula’s & especially about Orion one, let me explain!
What is a Nebula?
This are just as simple as mixture of ionized gases & dust particles(like metals). Also, there’re variety of Nebular formation. Some are formed when stars (like white dwarf) explode after their death. As a result, they through off gases (like hydrogen/helium) & dust particles away. They come together, their molecules combines to form clouds, called nebula.
They can be huge in size though! Most of them sizes roughly about hundreds of light years across. Some nebula’s are birthplace to stars, planets & other celestial object. Their mass however, is far less than their size. A earth sized portion of a typical nebula, would barely have mass of a few Kilograms. So, there density is much much less.
There are types of nebula’s; some are emission nebula, reflector nebula & light absorbing nebula.
What is Orion Nebula?
Named after Greek name, meaning “Dawning or Rising in the sky!”, Orion is the diffuse nebula. Its situated in our own Milky Way Galaxy. This is one of the nearest to us nebula at 1300 light years. It’s considered to be about 24 light years in diameters. It is the emission nebula, meaning, it glows via its own light. The Orion is the birthplace to a lot of baby stars & planets. In fact, at the very moment, you are reading this, the nebula is still manufacturing.
The First Ever Most Detailed 3D Tour of Orion Nebula is Here
The clouded object is at distance enough, for anyone of us to not to be able to reach there in reality. In-fact, there won’t possibly be anyone in human history to be able to fly through it in reality. Why? That’s the whopping 1300 light years of distance my friend. We so far haven’t been able to reach nowhere near the speed of light. In case, we become smart enough to gain 1079252848.8 Km/hr, it would still take generations. You got the idea now! :p
So, unfortunately, forget about experiencing the nebula by actually getting there. Rely on virtual for now!
The cooks from NASA’s Hubble & Spitzer space telescope came together. They made the most delicious food with Hollywood recipe! The resulting Orion Nebula’s 3D dish is the the testiest so far.
The short, 3 min clip combines both visible & infrared light. On the top of that, its edited by visualization specialists along with astronomers. The 3D fly through is aimed to give you a feel of real flying through the nebula.
Unlike 2D images we usually come after, it gives you deep understanding of space in 3D.
Just so you know, the view is more realistic & not imaginary. The reason for this being that it primarily uses observation data collected by both the telescopes. This is also the reason for such a detailed view.
Since Hubble can see visible light, it shows hot region. On the other hand, is Splitzer, capable to provide infrared light from cooler regions. Together=full view!
“The main thing is to give the viewer an experiential understanding, so that they have a way to interpret the images from telescopes,” Summers said.
If you don’t have a telescope yet, let me help! I have listed here the best telescopes for beginners to start observing nebula as quick as possible.
“It’s a really wonderful thing when they can build a mental model in their head to transform the two-dimensional image into a three-dimensional scene.”
Feel free to express your thoughts on the fly through, below!
