Matt Jones' Random Acts of Verbiage

Once again, I bring you Space Satur…Sunday! This week I bring you The Horsehead Nebula!

Credit: Anglo-Australian Observatory, photograph by David Malin

The Horsehead Nebula (also known as Barnard 33 and IC 434) resides in the constellation Orion (near the lower left belt star ζ) about 1500 light years away.

The red glow behind the nebula comes from hydrogen gas being ionized by the nearby star (σ Orionis - just below ζ, neither are pictured). The nebula itself is made largely of dust that blocks the light from the ionized hydrogen from reaching us. There are also bright spots of star formation in Barnard 33. There is a lot of stuff going on in that region, so check out some of the other resorces and links!

Resources:
Image from NOAO
Other information and images from NOAO
Wider region from the Anglo-Australian Observatory
Images from Hubble Site
An image from Ray Gralak
Other assorted images

Visit my Space Saturday Archive

Enjoy!
Ή χάρις του κυρίου ημων Ίησου Χριστου μεθ’ υμων.

PS. I also want to point out two sun flare video clips from NASA: here and here (Hat Tip to Tom’s Astronomy Blog, see his post for more information). Apparently this is in the top five largest solar flares recorded. The clips are quite cool.