by Ann » Thu Nov 23, 2017 6:35 pm
Wow! This is a truly great image!
Just look at those faint, delicate dust details, and the way they so subtly change from brown (possibly faintly reflecting the overall color of the Milky Way) to blue (reflecting blue starlight) to pink (becoming "very slightly ionized" by nearby hot stars).
Note how bright Alnilam (the middle star of the Belt) seems to have blown a cavity of emptiness around itself, by pushing gas and dust away with its tremendous stellar winds. Alnilam is believed to be by far the most massive and brilliant of the Belt stars, but it looks no brighter than the other two because it is farther away.
Note the little blue clouds of reflection nebulosity near Alnilam, and also note all the rather small blue stars forming a sort of arc or a ring around Alnilam. I'm too lazy to look it up now, but I do believe that these stars are physically associated with Alnilam. The other two Belt stars, strange as it might seem, may be unrelated to Alnilam, because they are perhaps only half as far away as the supergiant star in the middle of the Belt.
The name Alnilam means
"a string of pearls", a beautiful name for a beautiful star.
Ann
Wow! This is a truly great image!
Just look at those faint, delicate dust details, and the way they so subtly change from brown (possibly faintly reflecting the overall color of the Milky Way) to blue (reflecting blue starlight) to pink (becoming "very slightly ionized" by nearby hot stars).
[float=right][img2]http://tinyurl.com/y78q2nar[/img2][c][size=85]Relative distances of the Belt stars. Source:
http://www.christiancyberspace.com/cosmic-discovery/html/stars/infopage-Orion%27s_Belt.html[/size][/c][/float]Note how bright Alnilam (the middle star of the Belt) seems to have blown a cavity of emptiness around itself, by pushing gas and dust away with its tremendous stellar winds. Alnilam is believed to be by far the most massive and brilliant of the Belt stars, but it looks no brighter than the other two because it is farther away.
Note the little blue clouds of reflection nebulosity near Alnilam, and also note all the rather small blue stars forming a sort of arc or a ring around Alnilam. I'm too lazy to look it up now, but I do believe that these stars are physically associated with Alnilam. The other two Belt stars, strange as it might seem, may be unrelated to Alnilam, because they are perhaps only half as far away as the supergiant star in the middle of the Belt.
The name Alnilam means [url=http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/sow/alnilam.html]"a string of pearls"[/url], a beautiful name for a beautiful star.
Ann