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The Orion Nebula in a galaxy?

Porl

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Porl

Porl

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Hi everyone, I wasn't too sure where to ask this question and thought this might be the best place.

I've been looking at photos of the Orion Nebula and other Nebula type objects like the Ring Nebula etc and It got me thinking. The Orion nebula is so massive is it a 'free floating' type of object or is it an object inside a galaxy or our Milky way?

Also I have often wondered, could our solar system be inside one of these types of objects? And if we were inside something like the orion nebula would we not be able to see out because of all the gas / dust clouds?

thanks ;)

Paul''

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EA2007

EA2007

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Hi Paul,

Your probably gonna get a few answers to this all saying pretty much the same thing.

Lets start from the top.....

Is the Orion nebula free-floating? Well yes, everything in space is free-floating, although most of it is bound by gravity to larger scale structures (i.e. the Earth to the Sun and likewise the Moon to the Earth), but the distances involved are so large that they are independent from one another.

Is the Orion nebula inside a galaxy? Yes, it is, it partly answers your next question because the Orion nebula is in our home galaxy the 'Milky Way'. Any object you see in astronomy pictures or though a telescope (with the exception of galaxies) are found in our home galaxy the 'Milky Way'. The Orion nebula is about 1,500 light years away, whereas the Milky Way galaxy itself is about 160,000 light years in diameter.

Is our Solar System inside a nebula? No, although it would once have been, around 4.5 to 5 billion years ago. About this time then the solar system was being formed, a previous star from the era after the big bang (13.7+ Billion years ago) would have exploded creating a supernova, the material held in this supernova would of condensed forming a more structured nebula (a bit like how we see the Orion nebula) and from it matter would get clumped together under the force of gravity. Due to the conservation of angular momentum (snazzy!) material bound by gravity would begin to spin, this attracts more material and the influx of new particles would eventually build up a massive spherical structure, this would eventually become what we know as the Sun, immense pressure would ignite the hydrogen gas under nuclear fusion and a star is born. Similar spherical structures would be occurring near this star, although not on such a massive scale, it is these objects we call planets, due to their lower mass then they begin to orbit the Sun. All material in the Solar System and here on Earth (including the plastic on your keyboard) originated from a star.

The nebulous material would have been 'hoovered' up by the Sun or blown away towards the interstellar medium by the Sun's outwards winds and it is because of this that we don't see any today. So when we look up at the night sky, we don't see ionized hydrogen or pinky/blue/purple gas we see black skies as the nebulosity has depleted as it has condensed into larger scale solid structures.

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acey

acey

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Inter-galactic distances are so vast that it would be impossible to see something of that scale in the average amateur 'scope if it was located in another galaxy.

Nebulae (HII regions) can be seen in galaxies M31 and M33 using amateur scopes. Globular clusters in M31 are also visible, as well as star clouds in both galaxies. The most prominent nebula in M33 is NGC 604, which is about 40 times the size of the Orion nebula.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_604

http://astronomy-mall.com/Adventures.In.Deep.Space/M33.HII-Star.Clouds.html

http://fdsa-blog.blogspot.com/2010/06/extragalactic-objects-in-andromeda.html

One extra-galactic nebula is visible to the unaided eye (though I've never been far enough south to look for it): the Tarantula Nebula (NGC 2070) in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarantula_Nebula

http://www.hawastsoc.org/deepsky/dor/print.html

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Porl

Porl

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thanks for the brilliant answers guys! :D The vast distances involved in astronomy always blow my mind and for some reason I never thought that our galaxy would be big enough to contain objects that themselves are so massive.

Thanks again ;)

Paul''

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EA2007

EA2007

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distances are immense.

here's a little bit of trivia

The distance between the Earth and the Sun is approx 91 million miles, the distance from the Sun to the nearest star Alpha Proxima (Centaurai) (outside our Solar System) is 4.2 light years (or 24.686 trillion miles).

On a scale of 91 million miles at 1cm (i.e. the Sun to Earth distance being 1cm) then the nearest star Alpha Proxima is 2.7 kilometres away

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Porl

Porl

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wow Acey the fact you can see globular clusters and nebulosity in other galaxies now knowing that our galaxy is even bigger than I thought and the distances between galaxies are massive too! That is too cool!! :D:)

EA2007, again my mind is blown with the scale of distances! trying to imagine the distances of trillions of miles = ;)

Paul''

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Simms

Simms

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The distances truely are mindblowing, The light that we currently see which forms the Andromeda Galaxy is the light that left there over 2 million years ago - to put that in perspective that is over 4x the time Humans (as homo sapien) have walked the earth (about 50000 years) - 2 million years ago we were merely homo-erectus. Mental!

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matt220781

matt220781

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distances are immense.

here's a little bit of trivia

The distance between the Earth and the Sun is approx 91 million miles, the distance from the Sun to the nearest star Alpha Proxima (Centaurai) (outside our Solar System) is 4.2 light years (or 24.686 trillion miles).

On a scale of 91 million miles at 1cm (i.e. the Sun to Earth distance being 1cm) then the nearest star Alpha Proxima is 2.7 kilometres away

Where's the mind blown smiley when i need it?! ;)

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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If you want to see the kind of nebula that probably existed around the sun, have a look at the Rosette; the young stars in the central cluster are now blowing away the cloud that gave birth to them, hollowing out its centre.

Olly

1013289628_hS3L7-S.jpg

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