H/T Lana Duze Youve never seen the star hunter - Orion - so beautiful. Orions Big Head Revealed in Infrared. In Greek mythology, Orion was a hunter whose vanity was so great that he angered the goddess Artemis. As his punishment, Artemis banished the hunter to the sky where he can be seen as the famous constellation Orion. In the constellation, Orions head is represented by the star Lamdba Orionis (fuzzy red dot in middle). When viewed in infrared light, NASAs Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, shows a giant nebula around Lambda Orionis, inflating Orions head to huge proportions. Lambda Orionis is a hot, massive star that is surrounded by several other hot, massive stars, all of which are creating radiation that excites a ring of dust, creating the Lambda Orionis molecular ring. Also known as SH 2-264, the Lambda Orionis molecular ring is sometimes called the Meissa ring. In Arabic, the star Lambda Orionis is known as Meissa or Al-Maisan, meaning the shining one. The Meissa Ring is of interest to astronomers because it contains clusters of young stars and proto-stars, or forming stars, embedded within the clouds. With a diameter of approximately 130 light-years, the Lambda Orionis molecular ring is notable for being one of the largest star-forming regions WISE has seen. This is also the largest single image featured by WISE so far, with an area of the sky approximately 10 by 10 degrees in size, equivalent to a grid of 20 by 20 full moons. Nevertheless, at less than one percent of the whole skys area, it is just a taste of WISE data.
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 20:45:07 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015