Sunset glow in Orion

Esahubble_potw1130a_1024

esahubble_potw1130a July 25th, 2011

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA 

NGC 2023 surrounds a massive young B-type star. These stars are large, bright and blue-white in colour, and have a high surface temperature, being several times hotter than the Sun. The energy emitted from NGC2023s B-type star illuminates the nebula, resulting in its high surface brightness: good news for astronomers who wish to study it. The star itself lies outside the field of view, at the upper left, and its brilliant light is scattered by Hubbles optical system, creating the bright flare across the left side of the picture, which is not a real feature of the nebula. Stars are forming from the material comprising NGC 2023. This Hubble image captures the billowing waves of gas, 5000 times denser than the interstellar medium. The unusual greenish clumps are thought to be HerbigHaro objects. These peculiar features of star-forming regions are created when gas ejected at hundreds of kilometres per second from newly formed stars impacts the surrounding material. These shockwaves cause the gas to glow and result in the strange shapes seen here. HerbigHaro objects typically only last for a few thousand years, which is the blink of eye in astronomical terms. This picture was created from multiple images taken with the Wide Field Camera of Hubbles Advanced Camera for Surveys. Exposures through a blue filter (F475W) are coloured blue, exposures through a yellow filter (F625W) are coloured green and images through a near-infrared filter (F850LP) are shown as red. The total exposure times per filter are 800 s, 800 s and 1200 s, respectively, and the field of view spans 3.2 arcminutes.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1130a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
NGC 2023
Subject - Milky Way
Nebula > Appearance > Reflection
Esahubble_potw1130a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 5h 41m 36.2s
DEC = -2° 17’ 33.3”
Orientation
North is 15.2° CCW
Field of View
3.3 x 3.2 arcminutes
Constellation
Orion

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red Hubble (ACS) Infrared 850.0 nm
Green Hubble (ACS) Optical 625.0 nm
Blue Hubble (ACS) Optical 475.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Red
Green
Blue
Esahubble_potw1130a_1280
×
ID
potw1130a
Subject Category
B.4.2.2  
Subject Name
NGC 2023
Credits
ESA/Hubble & NASA 
Release Date
2011-07-25T10:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1130a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
ACS, ACS, ACS
Color Assignment
Red, Green, Blue
Band
Infrared, Optical, Optical
Bandpass
Central Wavelength
850, 625, 475
Start Time
Integration Time
1200, 800, 800
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
85.4009554154, -2.29259438329
Reference Dimension
3963.0, 3897.0
Reference Pixel
1981.0, 1948.0
Scale
-1.38594038191e-05, 1.38594038191e-05
Rotation
15.200000000000001
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
ESA/Hubble
URL
http://www.spacetelescope.org/
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
City
Garching bei München
State/Province
Postal Code
D-85748
Country
Germany
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
ESA/Hubble
Publisher ID
esahubble
Resource ID
potw1130a
Metadata Date
2011-05-12T16:18:20+02:00
Metadata Version
1.1
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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