The Nebula Beginning

The Nebula Beginning

So…….

What is the evidence???

The Nebula Beginning

So…….

What is the evidence???

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The Nebula Beginning

EDGE-ON PROTOPLANETARY DISK IN THE ORION NEBULA

Resembling an interstellar Frisbee, this is a disk of dust seen edge-on around a newborn star in the Orion nebula, located 1,500 light-years away. Because the disk is edge-on, the star is largely hidden inside, in this striking Hubble Space Telescope picture. The disk may be an embryonic planetary system in the making. Our solar system probably formed out of just such a disk 4.5 billion years ago. At 17 times the diameter of our own solar system, this disk is the largest of several recently discovered in the Orion nebula.

The left image is a three-color composite, taken in blue, green, and red emission lines from glowing gas in the nebula. The right image was taken through a different filter, which blocks any bright spectral emission lines from the nebula, and hence the disk itself is less distinctly silhouetted against the background. However, clearly visible in this image are nebulosities above and below the plane of the disk; these betray the presence of the otherwise invisible central star, which cannot be seen directly due to dust in the edge-on disk.

The images were taken between January 1994 and March 1995, and a study of their characteristics has been submitted for publication to the Astronomical Journal.

Credit: Mark McCaughrean (Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy), C. Robert O'Dell (Rice University), and NASA

The Nebula Beginning

The Nebula Beginning

CLOSE-UP OF "PROPLYDS" IN ORION A

Hubble Space Telescope view of a small portion of the Orion Nebula reveals five young stars. Four of the stars are surrounded by gas and dust trapped as the stars formed, but were left in orbit about the star. These are possibly protoplanetary disks, or "proplyds," that might evolve on to agglomerate planets. The proplyds which are closest to the hottest stars of the parent star cluster are seen as bright objects, while the object farthest from the hottest stars is seen as a dark object. The field of view is only 0.14 light-years across. The Orion Nebula star-birth region is 1,500 light-years away, in the direction of the constellation Orion the Hunter.

The image was taken on 29 December 1993 with the HST's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2.

credit: C.R. O'Dell/Rice University NASA

The Nebula Beginning

The First Photo of an Exoplanet

This 2004 photograph made by the European Southern Observatory shows the first known photo of an exoplanet, or a planet beyond our solar system. The red orb at bottom left is a young planet, similar in composition to Jupiter, orbiting a brown dwarf, a dim, failed star that is probably 42 times less massive than the sun. An infrared camera, which reacts to heat rather than light, shot these photos from a distance of some 230 light-years. Photograph courtesy ESO/European Organization for Asronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere

The First Photo of an Exoplanet

The Nebula BeginningExoplanets

The Nebula BeginningExoplanets

Shown in infrared (left), three planets (marked b, c, and d) orbit the star HR 8799 in the first ever image of a multiplanet system. In a visible-light photo, the planets would be invisible, due to the glare from their host star.

In a sort of double exposure (right), newly discovered planet Fomalhaut b is shown moving along its orbit (marked with blue lines) in 2004 and 2006. Fomalhaut b is the first planet to have been captured in a visible-light image. Both discoveries were announced in November 2008.

Images courtesy National Research Council Canada and (right) Paul Kalas, University of California, Berkeley