Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                               2020 October 4

                Orion Nebula in Oxygen, Hydrogen, and Sulfur
                Image Credit & Copyright: César Blanco González

   Explanation: Few astronomical sights excite the imagination like the
   nearby stellar nursery known as the Orion Nebula. The Nebula's glowing
   gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar
   molecular cloud. Many of the filamentary structures visible in the
   featured image are actually shock waves - fronts where fast moving
   material encounters slow moving gas. The Orion Nebula spans about 40
   light years and is located about 1500 light years away in the same
   spiral arm of our Galaxy as the Sun. The Great Nebula in Orion can be
   found with the unaided eye just below and to the left of the easily
   identifiable belt of three stars in the popular constellation Orion.
   The image shows the nebula in three colors specifically emitted by
   hydrogen, oxygen, and sulfur gas. The whole Orion Nebula cloud complex,
   which includes the Horsehead Nebula, will slowly disperse over the next
   100,000 years.

                      Tomorrow's picture: hubble spiral
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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