These are Hubble Space Telescope images of four protoplanetary disks around young stars in the Orion Nebula, approximately 1,300 light-years away. The disks range in size from two to eight times the diameter of our solar system. Astronomers spotted the disks in large-scale survey images of the Orion nebula taken with Hubble between January 1994 and March 1995.
Credits
Image
NASA, Mark J. McCaughrean (MPI-A), C. Robert O'Dell (Rice University)
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Orion Nebula, M42, NGC 1976 |
| Object Description | Protoplanetary disks in the Orion Nebula |
| R.A. Position | 05h 35m 17.29s |
| Dec. Position | -5° 23' 27.99" |
| Distance | The distance to the Orion Nebula is 1,500 light-years (460 parsecs). |
| About The Data | |
| Instrument | WFC2 |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | Each picture is a composite of three images taken with Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, through narrow-band filters which admit the light of emission lines of ionized oxygen (represented here by blue), hydrogen (green), and nitrogen (red). |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
