ASTRONOMY The Prawn Nebula . . . (See two pictures below) Located around 6000 light-years from Earth (36,000,000,000,000,000 miles) in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion), the Prawn Nebula formally known as IC 4628 is a huge region filled with gas and clumps of dark dust. These gas clouds are star-forming regions, producing brilliant hot young stars. Scorpius is almost unique among constellations in that it actually looks something like what it’s named after – a scorpion. In Greek mythology the sting of the scorpion is central to a great chase across the night sky. As Orion the hunter sets in the western sky, Scorpius rises in the east – sent by the gods to sting the hunter to death. The details of Orion’s crime vary from bragging that he could slay every beast on Earth, to ravishing Eos, the goddess of dawn. But whatever the reason, the hunter is pursued by the scorpion in an impossible chase that will last as long as the constellations themselves. While Scorpius looks like a pattern of a dozen or so bright points, it’s actually made up of hundreds of stars. Because it lies across the Milky Way, many of the bright points we see in the constellation are actually clusters of stars from deep within the galaxy – they’re just so far away (up to 36,000 light-years) that they look like a single star to the naked eye. The brightest and most spectacular star in the constellation is Antares – a red supergiant about 500 light-years away from us, 1 billion kilometres in diameter and about 9000 times brighter than the sun! Antares means rival of Mars, a fitting name for a star so like the famed red planet. From Antares, follow the hook – the scorpion’s tail – to the end. If you’re in a dark enough area you’ll spot the Butterfly Cluster (M6). To the naked eye it looks like a fuzzy patch, but with good binoculars or a telescope you’ll see a large bright open cluster of hundreds of stars in the shape of a butterfly. If the sky’s dark enough you could see another fuzzy patch near M6 – the bright cluster M7. You should also be able to see the globular clusters M4 and M80 with a good pair of binoculars, but you’ll need a telescope to see individual stars. While Scorpius is a fairly large constellation, it used to be twice as big. The scorpion of Greek mythology featured two enormous claws. But around 100 BC the Romans declawed Scorpius, and the celestial appendages became the scales of justice – the constellation we now know as Libra. Where is Scorpius? Scorpius is an easy constellation to spot – it looks like a giant coat hanger hook with an anchor on the end. But you’ll only see it in Australian skies from May to November. In May, you can find it in the eastern sky right after sunset. By August it’s directly overhead – you’ll find the hook of the scorpion’s tail curling off to the east, and the bright T-shape of its body to the west. From October to November it’s in the western part of the sky, then it disappears from view. Start your search for Scorpius by finding Antares – the bright red star in the middle of the constellation. From Antares you’ll find a large ‘hook’ of stars heading east, and three bright stars forming a T-shape to the west.
Posted on: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 17:02:00 +0000
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