Astronomy Picture of the Day
    


LL Ori and the Orion Nebula
<< Yesterday 20.01.2006 Tomorrow >>
LL Ori and the Orion Nebula
Credit & Copyright: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team
Explanation: This esthetic close-up of cosmic clouds and stellar winds features LL Orionis, interacting with the Orion Nebula flow. Adrift in Orion's stellar nursery and still in its formative years, variable star LL Orionis produces a wind more energetic than the wind from our own middle-aged Sun. As the fast stellar wind runs into slow moving gas a shock front is formed, analogous to the bow wave of a boat moving through water or a plane traveling at supersonic speed. The small, arcing, graceful structure just above and left of center is LL Ori's cosmic bow shock, measuring about half a light-year across. The slower gas is flowing away from the Orion Nebula's hot central star cluster, the Trapezium, located off the upper left corner of the picture. In three dimensions, LL Ori's wrap-around shock front is shaped like a bowl that appears brightest when viewed along the "bottom" edge. The beautiful picture is part of a large mosaic view of the complex stellar nursery in Orion, filled with a myriad of fluid shapes associated with star formation.

News: New Horizons spacecraft launched to Pluto.

January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
 < January 2006  >
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su






1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031




Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.

Based on Astronomy Picture Of the Day

Publications with keywords: stellar wind - bow shock - Orion Nebula - emission nebula - star formation - M 42
Publications with words: stellar wind - bow shock - Orion Nebula - emission nebula - star formation - M 42
See also:
All publications on this topic >>