1080p reflection nebula8/11/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() The Flame Nebula (NGC 2024), the reflection nebula NGC 2023, and the dark Horsehead Nebula appear near Alnitak, the leftmost star of Orion’s Belt. Several bright Orion nebulae appear within Barnard’s Loop. Some of its gas may be seen in a telescope on a very clear, dark night, but the best way to see it is in wide-field long-exposure photographs of Orion. The nebula is usually too faint to be seen visually. Image credit: Rogelio Bernal Andreo (CC BY-SA 3.0) The photograph appeared as the Astronomy Picture of the Day on October 23, 2010. The red crescent shape is Barnard’s Loop. Rigel appears to the bottom right, next to the reflection nebula IC 2118 (the Witch Head Nebula). Also captured is the red supergiant Betelgeuse (top left), the Lambda Orionis Ring (top centre) and the famous Belt of Orion composed of the OB stars Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka. Photo taken by Rogelio Bernal Andreo in October 2010 of the Orion constellation showing the surrounding nebulas of the Orion molecular cloud complex. The supernovae that occurred within the last few million years would have swept up any dust in their paths and hollowed out the cavity. The alignment of the molecular clouds indicates that most star-forming activity is found at the edge of the cavity, where it is triggered by the pressure waves of the supernova events. The cluster lies near the centre of both Barnard’s Loop and a giant dust cavity whose edges border with several molecular clouds. They identified a cluster, OBP-B1, as the parent cluster of the supernova progenitors. The team presented their findings at the 240th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Pasadena, California, in June 2022.įoley and his team suggested that the formation of Barnard’s Loop was associated with the supernovae that occurred in the region within the last 4 million years. In 2022, a team led by Michael Foley of the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian, used a 3D-mapping technique and provided evidence of a formation mechanism that may have produced the nebula. The origin of Barnard’s Loop has puzzled astronomers for over a century. ![]() A description of this nebula would not only be complicated but it would fail, also, to give any impression of its form and magnitude I have, therefore, made the enclosed drawing of it which will show at once its exact location and form.”īarnard’s Loop, image credit: Giuseppe Donatiello (CC0 1.0) Barnard described it as “an enormous curved nebulosity encircling the belt and the great nebula, and covering a large portion of the body of the giant. The German-born British astronomer William Herschel may have been the first to spot the nebula in 1786.Į. Barnard was not the first person to observe the nebula, but he photographed and described it in 1894. Barnard’s Loop appears south of the Lambda Orionis Ring.īarnard’s Loop was named after the American astronomer and astrophotographer Edward Emerson Barnard. It is also home to the Lambda Orionis Ring (Sharpless 264, the Angelfish Nebula), an H II region in the northern part of Orion ionized by the hot blue O-type giant Meissa (Lambda Orionis), the star that marks Orion’s head. The complex hosts the bright Orion Nebula (Messier 42), the nearest region of massive star formation to Earth. The regions of the Orion molecular cloud complex, image: Wikimedia Commons/Meli thev (CC BY-SA 4.0) The Orion complex consists of two giant clouds of molecular hydrogen and is home to many emission nebulae, reflection nebulae, dark nebulae, and clusters of stars formed within the stellar nurseries of Orion. It has the catalogue designation Sh2-276 in the Sharpless catalogue of H II regions.īarnard’s Loop is part of the Orion molecular cloud complex, a vast H II region that stretches hundreds of light-years across and lies between 1,000 and 1,400 light-years away. Depending on the distance, the nebula may have a physical size of 100 or 300 light-years. Recent estimates place the nebula either 518 light-years away or 1,434 light-years away. The distance to Barnard’s Loop is uncertain. The supernova event sent them speeding through space to their present locations. The three stars and the supernova progenitor are believed to have been part of the same multiple-star system. The same supernova may have expelled several known runaway stars, the hot blue AE Aurigae (which illuminates the Flaming Star Nebula in Auriga), Mu Columbae, and 53 Arietis. Barnard’s Loop (Sh2-276), image credit: Rogelio Bernal Andreo (CC BY-SA 3.0)īarnard’s Loop is believed to have been formed after a supernova event that occurred approximately 2 million years ago. ![]()
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