Orion Revisited: Astronomers Find New Star Cluster in Front of the Orion Nebula
Precise distances are difficult to gauge in space, especially within
the relatively local regions of the Galaxy. Stars which appear close
together in the night sky may actually be separated by many hundreds or
thousands of light-years, and since there’s only a limited amount of space
here on Earth with which to determine distances using parallax,
astronomers have to come up with other ways to figure out how far
objects are, and what exactly is in front of or “behind” what.
Recently, astronomers using the 340-megapixel MegaCam on the
Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) observed the star-forming region
of the famous Orion nebula — located only about 1,500 light-years away —
and determined that two massive groupings of the nebula’s stars are
actually located in front of the cluster as completely separate
structures… a finding that may ultimately force astronomers to rethink
how the many benchmark stars located there had formed.
Although
the Orion nebula is easily visible with the naked eye (as the hazy
center “star” in Orion’s three-star sword, hanging perpendicular below
his belt) its true nebulous nature wasn’t identified until 1610. As a
vast and active star-forming region of bright dust and gas located a
mere 1,500 light-years distant, the various stars within the Orion
Nebula Cluster (ONC) has given astronomers invaluable benchmarks for
research on many aspects of star.
by Jason Major
Read more:
