Baby Stars

2/4/07 – 2/10/07

by C. Zaitz

One of the most magnificent things to “see” in the sky is the Great Nebula in Orion. However, it’s not so great to the naked eye on a chilly evening in light-polluted Metro Detroit in February. Your eye might detect a little fuzziness, a little hazy area around the stars at the tip of Orion’s sword. One of the “stars” is really the nebula, but the significance of this little blur in the sky might be lost by a casual glance.

If we look a little deeper, the fuzzy blob reveals one of the most incredible places in our galaxy. The nebula is a huge, diffuse cloud of gas and dust, some 1,500 light years from earth. The nebula formed from an even more diffuse cloud of molecular gas, slowly brought together into denser pockets that eventually formed stars. We now see pockets of gas and dust forming bubbles, or protoplanetary discs. Perhaps stars with planets are forming, or maybe a double star system will form. We already see baby stars in their formative years. Embedded within the wisps of colorful gas of the nebula is a group of four hot, blue stars in a formation we call the Trapezium, at least one of which is a double star. These stars can be seen easily with a small telescope, and they mark the spot where nearly 1,000 sun-like stars are just being born and are beginning to shine. It’s a stellar nursery, similar to the famous one we’ve seen in the Eagle Nebula.

Right now the area is clouded with dust and gas, lit in abstract colors by the intense fires of the newly born stars. Astronomers say that eventually the nebula will be blown away or absorbed and what will be left is something similar to the Pleiades or the Beehive cluster. These are called open clusters, and remind me of ripe grapes hanging in clusters in space. They are beautiful, but they relatively devoid of the colorful gas clouds that make the Orion Nebula so stunning. When we look at the Nebula with telescopes and make long-exposure images, we see an incredibly breathtaking work of art, nature’s best, hanging low in the constellation of Orion.

So how do you go about seeing the Orion nebula? If you begin on the internet, by looking at the beautiful full-color shots from the Hubble Space telescope or even large ground-based telescopes, you will not be disappointed. But if you start there, you may end there. You may never get the thrill of seeing the nebula live, in person, through a telescope. And there is something special about seeing deep-space object, or things outside our solar system, with your own eyes. Therefore, finding a winter star party is your best bet for seeing the nebula. Amateur astronomers are famous for sharing their expensive telescopes with anyone who wants to see the sky, and even some folks who were just innocently passing by. I have even been known to cajole people into taking a glimpse. Though folks may be tentative at first, it only takes seconds to be converted into a believer.

Who is throwing a star party at this time of the year? If you do a quick internet search for our local amateur astronomy groups, you’ll be surprised. As long as you bundle up in layers, winter star gazing can be quite exhilarating and fun. And there’s oh so many ways to warm up afterwards, sharing laughs and warm beverages with new friends.

Until next week, my friends, enjoy the view.