“Nebulae” inside the Milky Way Galaxy or separate, distant Galaxies?
Discoveries of what were termed “nebulae” began in the early 17th century. The first of these discoveries was the Orion Nebula, which looked like a normal star to the naked eye. French scholar Peiresc discovered it in 1610 using one of the first telescopes to be made. Later, in 1656, Christiaan Huygens observed the interior of the Orion Nebula and determined that it consisted of a compact quadruple star system instead of a singular star. During the 18th and 19th century, nebulas were discovered even though astronomers were mainly scanning the sky for comets. Some major astronomers who contributed greatly to the discovery of nebulas, among other things, during the 18th and 19th century were Messier and the Herschel family. Though the instrumentation available to astronomers during the 18th and 19th century were highly advanced compared to earlier times, they weren’t advanced enough to detect the motion of extragalactic objects or their composition. This lack of precision instrumentation, and thus the dissociation from motion of stars/star-clusters/nebulae, were the main reasons astronomers during this
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The ability to obtain the light spectrum of starlight was a big step, which allowed for the determination of motion in 3-D space. Astrophotography—especially the dry plates—was a major technological development during this period which led up to the classification of nebulae as distant galaxies/star systems. Telescopes could be mounted with plate-holders and spectrographs or studio cameras could be mounted with a prism on top to show spectra of the objects being photographed. All these developments greatly contributed to early-20th century astronomers’ ability to realize that many nebulae weren’t inside the Milky Way but rather were separate star systems of their
As a little girl, I would look up at the stars. I had been taught about many constellations, but I would always look for a certain one. Orion. Orion had been my favorite since I had learned about him. I never understood why. I tried to bring myself to love Pegasus, but I never could. Nothing appealed to me like Orion did. Something about the great hunter struck me. Since then I have loved him. I always look for him. In Greek mythology, Orion is a hunter. In fact, there are many legends containing Orion. Orion would wear a magic lion skin that would protect him from harm. He wielded a club of bronze and went about vanquishing evil creatures. In many legends, Orion is born and killed rather quickly. He dies by accident or dies on purpose.
I have had a love for Orion for as long as I can recall. It was the first constellation I could readily locate. Every fall I would start looking for those three bright stars on the belt: Alnitak, Alniham, and Mintaka. The constellation also includes some of the most recognized star names: Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, and Rigel. I also had a soft spot for it because it had the same name as my grandfather, it felt like a connection to him. Though, that was where the similarities between a man and demigod end.
A second key detail from the debate is the discovering of what nebulae really are and where they are located as well. This is important because it allows us
The constellation I have chosen to write about is Orion. This is one of the most famous constellations in the night sky. I chose this one because as I stated, it is very famous, and because it is one of those constellations that I have seen many times. Orion is a hunter, so the constellation shows a man holding a club and shield. It is easily recognized by the three stars in a line that form the hunter's belt.
I am contacting you on behalf of the Astronomy Club. As you may or may not have heard, the Associated Students of the University of Arizona released a statement to all of the clubs on campus saying that the Appropriations Board had a meeting on March 6th and concluded that it no longer had any more funds to support any of the clubs until further notice. We received this approximately 2 weeks prior to when we had planned to submit our necessary document to request travel funds for our upcoming 2-day trip to the Grand Canyon/Discovery Telescope on the weekend of April 14-16. Therefore, we are contacting you to ask if the department would consider partially funding this event.
Have you ever looked up at the sky on a clear night and wondered, “what else is out there?”. What could possibly lie beyond the beautiful blanket of stars that we see with our naked eye? Nebulas are one of many galactic phenomena that lie beyond the Kuiper belt. Mysterious and fascinatingly beautiful sights to behold, they have more of a purpose than just painting the galaxy backdrop with color. I’m not a diehard fan of astronomy and to be perfectly honest I find it difficult to follow most of the information I have learned. However, when I came across pictures and information on nebulas I was instantly fascinated. From how and why they’re formed, to what they do for the galaxy, I’m excited to take you on an intellectual journey though nebulas.
A nebulae as described in Fraknoi’s Voyages to the Stars and Galaxies is “all objects that were not sharp points of light” (Fraknoi, page 384). The Sagittarius Triplet is a group of three nebulae’s famous for their bright red and blue hues, which is a main reason I choose this picture. There are three nebulae in this picture and each is spectacular on its own but together the Sagittarius Triplet creates a visual buffet for the eyes. The dark reds in particular are beautiful to behold and take up the majority of the visual landscape. These red colors are created by the emission nebulae by hydrogen gas that is heated by the intense temperatures of present stars. The image made me feel the vastness of space and the endlessness of time. The interesting layout of the nebulae creates a long stardust highway across the image, connecting the NGC 6559 and M8 nebulae. These three nebulae are so bright they are routinely featured in telescopic tours of the Sagittarius constellation and the central Milky Way galaxy. M8 or the Lagoon Nebula and M20 or Trifid were first cataloged in 1764 by Charles Messier (Kronberg).
As a comet hunter Charles Messier came across what are known now to be galaxies, nebulae, planetary nebulae and star clusters. With help from his assistant Pierre Méchain, Messier composed a list of them. Messier done this to make it easier to differentiate between the comets they were looking for and other objects. The list is made up of the objects that they could see from the north celestial pole to a celestial latitude
The Carina Nebula is located in the Milky Way Galaxy in the constellation Carina in the Carina-Sagittarius Arm. It is sometimes referred to as the Eta Argus, referencing the former constellation, Argo Navis, which represented Jason and the Argonauts. It has been estimated at around 7500 ly (light-years) from earth. It was discovered in 1751-52 by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille and was later found to be one of the largest emission stars in the galaxy. Its entire mass is around 900,000 solar masses which is equivalent to 270 million pounds. It contains several open clusters of stars along with many O-type stars. It used to contain thousands of more stars than it does today, but many self-destructed. It is home to the Trumpler 14 and Trumpler 16
Many scientist used telescopes to look at the planets and turned up the brightness. It helped showing how far the planet was and to show there are planets between the star and earth. Scientist started looking for pulsating stars and using them to find different planets. To find smaller planets scientist used NASA’s Kepler telescope. The telescope was very helpful for NASA and it proved that there are smaller planets. They figured out that some stars have planets. NASA’s help was very successful and they found different planets by the
MAIN FEATURES: The Orion Nebula was first spotted by Alexander von Humboldt and later by Galileo who noted its particular luminous nebulosity. The Orion Nebula is classed as an emission nebula and its main feature is the four massive and intensely hot stars, collectively
An accurate description of atomic processes governing the origin of elements in the astronomical objects is essential to understand the cosmic evolution of the universe. This project is one of the endeavors to accomplish this goal. Also, the knowledge of the atomic structure of heavy elements such as Krypton, Xenon, and Molybdenum is necessary to understand their interaction with the plasma in power generation reactors. New S2+ DR results may remove the anomalous behavior noticed by plasma modelers in its elemental abundance observed in the Orion Nebulae. Most importantly, this work will make my contribution as a woman in this male-dominating field and will inspire other women and me to take advantage of every opportunity come across to give
William Herschel was an amateur astronomer. “During the day his house was a school of music. Suddenly, it was a telescope factory as well. During the night it was an observatory” (Littman, 6). In 1781, while completing his “second all-sky survey with one of his home-made telescopes”, he saw something he couldn’t specify as a comet or a nebula.
Orion is my favorite constellation because it is one of the easiest to find and most recognizable. This makes it one of the most popular constellations. Orion's belt includes the three brightest stars in the sky. In the Northern Hemisphere, Orion is a fall and winter constellation, visible from November to February. One of Orion's "stars" is actually a nebula, the Orion nebula.
Once microwave radiation was discovered, studies improved on the Milky Way Galaxy. Its Doppler Shift can be used to map the motion of gas in it. Also, with radio telescopes, hydrogen gas can now be traced. When the Hubble Space Telescope was introduced in 1990, that made exploring space so much easier and more efficient. That’s how we discovered so much about our universe- including galaxies!