Fragment of NGC 2175
The problem is that star formation is a very inefficient process; most of the ingredients to make stars are wasted as the cloud of gas and dust, or nebula, gradually disperses. In NGC 2174, the rate at which the nebula disperses is further speeded up by the presence of hot young stars, which create high velocity winds that blow the gas outwards.
These fiery youngsters also bombard the surrounding gas with intense radiation, making it glow brightly, creating the brilliant scene captured here. The nebula is mostly composed of hydrogen gas, which is ionised by the ultraviolet radiation emitted by the hot stars, leading to the nebula’s alternative title as an HII region. This picture shows only part of the nebula, where dark dust clouds are strikingly silhouetted against the glowing gas.
NGC 2174 lies about 6400 light-years away in the constellation of Orion (The Hunter). It is not part of the much more familiar Orion Nebula, which lies much closer to us. Despite its prime position in a very familiar constellation this nebula is faint and had to wait until 1877 for its discovery by the French astronomer Jean Marie Edouard Stephan using an 80 cm reflecting telescope at the Observatoire de Marseille.
This picture was created from images from the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on Hubble. Images through four different filters were combined to make the view shown here. Images through a filter isolating the glow from ionised oxygen (F502N) were coloured blue and images through a filter showing glowing hydrogen (F656N) are green. Glowing ionised sulphur (F673N) and the view through a near-infrared filter (F814W) are both coloured red. The total exposure times per filter were 2600 s, 2600 s, 2600 s and 1000 s respectively and the field of view is about 1.8 arcminutes across.
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This file is in the public domain because it was created by NASA and ESA. NASA Hubble material (and ESA Hubble material prior to 2009) is copyright-free and may be freely used as in the public domain without fee, on the condition that only NASA, STScI, and/or ESA is credited as the source of the material. This license does not apply if ESA material created after 2008 or source material from other organizations is in use. The material was created for NASA by Space Telescope Science Institute under Contract NAS5-26555, or for ESA by the Hubble European Space Agency Information Centre. Copyright statement at hubblesite.org or 2008 copyright statement at spacetelescope.org. For material created by the European Space Agency on the spacetelescope.org site since 2009, use the {{ESA-Hubble}} tag. |
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NGC 2175NGC 2175 ist die Bezeichnung für einen offenen Sternhaufen mit Gasnebel im nordöstlichen Gebiet des Sternbild Orion. NGC 2175 hat einen Winkeldurchmesser von 18 Bogenminuten und eine Helligkeit von 6,8 mag. Das Objekt wurde wahrscheinlich bereits von Giovanni Battista Hodierna vor 1654 beobachtet, dies ist jedoch nicht gesichert. Deshalb gilt der deutsche Astronom Karl Christian Bruhns als Entdecker, welcher das Objekt im Jahr 1857 beobachtete. .. weiterlesen
NGC 2174NGC 2174 ist ein H-II-Emissionsnebel im Sternbild Orion, der etwa 6400 Lichtjahre von der Erde entfernt ist. Die Größe des Nebels beträgt circa 40 Bogenminuten. Der Durchmesser beträgt 75 Lichtjahre. Er wird auch Affenkopfnebel genannt, weil er dem Kopf eines Makaken ähnlich sieht. .. weiterlesen