The Euclid team has released a spectacularly panoramic and detailed image of the Horsehead nebula.
This image from ESA’s Euclid spacecraft shows the Horsehead Nebula, also known as Barnard 33, a giant star-forming region located 1,375 light-years away in the constellation of Orion. Image credit: ESA / Euclid / Euclid Consortium / NASA / J.-C. Cuillandre, CEA Paris-Saclay / G. Anselmi / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.
The Horsehead nebula is located about 1,500 light years from Earth in the constellation of Orion.
Also known as Barnard 33, the nebula is visible only because its obscuring dust is silhouetted against the bright nebula IC 434.
It is only one small feature in the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, dominated in the center of this view by the brilliant Flame nebula (NGC 2024).
The Horsehead nebula was first recorded on February 6, 1888, by the Scottish astronomer Williamina Fleming.
The object formed from a collapsing interstellar cloud of material, and glows as it is illuminated by a nearby hot star.
The gas clouds surrounding the Horsehead have already dissipated, but the jutting pillar is made of stronger stuff that is harder to erode.
Astronomers estimate that the Horsehead formation has about 5 million years left before it too disintegrates.
“The Horsehead nebula sits just to the south of the star Alnitak, the easternmost of Orion’s famous three-star belt, and is part of the vast Orion molecular cloud,” the Euclid astronomers said.
“Many other telescopes have taken images of the Horsehead nebula, but none of them are able to create such a sharp and wide view as Euclid can with just one observation.”
“Euclid captured this image of the Horsehead in about one hour, which showcases the mission’s ability to very quickly image an unprecedented area of the sky in high detail.”
In Euclid’s new observation, the astronomers hope to find many dim and previously unseen Jupiter-mass protoplanets, young brown dwarfs and protostars.
“We are particularly interested in this region, because star formation is taking place in very special conditions,” said Dr. Eduardo Martin Guerrero de Escalante, an astronomer at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias in Tenerife and a legacy scientist for Euclid.
“These special conditions are caused by radiation coming from the very bright star Sigma Orionis, which is located above the Horsehead, just outside Euclid’s field-of-view.”
“Ultraviolet radiation from Sigma Orionis causes the clouds behind the Horsehead to glow, while the thick clouds of the Horsehead itself block light from directly behind it; this makes the head look dark.”
“The nebula itself is made up largely of cold molecular hydrogen, which gives off very little heat and no light.”
Sigma Orionis itself belongs to an open cluster; however, astronomers don’t have the full picture of all the stars belonging to the cluster.
“Gaia has revealed many new members, but we already see new candidate stars, brown dwarfs and planetary-mass objects in this Euclid image, so we hope that Euclid will give us a more complete picture,” Dr. de Escalante said.
