Orion is one of the most well-known and extensively researched constellations in the Milky Way.
With its closest stars located just a few hundred light-years from Earth, the constellation
is home to some of the biggest and brightest stars in the sky (including the notorious
red star Betelgeuse) as well as a healthy nursery of blazing, young stars that are ready
for study.
Now, using the powerful new James Webb Space Telescope, scientists have taken the most
precise and accurate photos of Orion in history.
But astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope discovered a mysterious dark cylindrical
object in the Orion Nebula.
What might this thing be?
What is the size of this object?
Join us as we examine how NASA found a massive object moving through the Orion Nebula.
The Orion Nebula has been a fascination of stargazers for generations, thanks in large
part to the fact that it can be seen with the naked eyes from Earth.
More than 400 years ago, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei is credited with finding the
nebula's greatest star cluster, the Trapezium.
Now, the new JWST images zoom in closer than ever before on the center of the nebula, revealing
dynamic sculptures of star-forming gas being shaped by strong stellar radiation.
Els Peeters, an astronomy professor at Western University in Ontario, Canada, stated in a
statement, "Massive young stars emit large quantities of ultraviolet radiation directly
into the cloud that still surrounds them, and this changes the physical shape of the
cloud as well as its chemical makeup," These new findings enable scientists to better comprehend
how large stars change the gas and dust cloud from which they emerge.
At the center of the image lies the brilliant star omicron 2 Orionis A, which is approximately
186 light-years from Earth.
A distance of approximately 1,350 light-years separates the Nebula from Earth, where hundreds
of newborn stars brighten and radiate the surrounding gas clouds.
The intense interactions between stars and their home cloud are most clearly visible
in the extended, brownish strip of gas behind the center star.
This dense gas wall, known as the Orion bar, is being steadily eaten away by the strong
stellar radiation of the Orion Nebula's hottest and brightest stars.
A variety of stunning and puzzling structures are scattered throughout the bar, including
long, wispy filaments of hydrogen, newborn stars surrounded by planet-forming discs of
dust, and large globs of gas that are slowly collapsing into infant stars before the eyes
of astronomers.
Not long ago, while perusing images of the Orion Nebula, researchers stumbled upon a
peculiar sight.
These old images were shot using a telescope to peer past our solar system and into the
Orion Nebula.
While reviewing the images, they spotted a huge, cigar-shaped object that had never been
seen before.
As this was not their first foray into space exploration or a hunt for nebulae in the night
sky, this threw them for a loop.
The image of the mysterious object was then sent by the astronomers to a massive internet
database that has images and information on unidentified flying objects seen all around
the world.
Interestingly, this wasn't the first time that amateur astronomers had reported encounters
with such objects; as they recorded each sighting, they described their encounters with this
object, highlighting its extraordinary length and the fact that it does not match anything
in the area where it was spotted.
Several hypotheses posited that this cigar-shaped object could be a comet or a problem with
the camera used to capture the image.
The astronomers who spotted this long object quickly disproved these claims, stating that
neither space debris nor comics have ever appeared in this form in all their years of
astrophotography.
Nonetheless, if this item is neither space debris nor a camera anomaly, what might it
be?
Some scientists hypothesized that the object may be dispersed throughout the Milky Way
galaxy, notably in Orion's Belt, while others hypothesized that similar objects could exist
in other parts of our galaxy.
Even while some scientists and astronomers have speculated that it is a probe from a
faraway galaxy dispatched to Earth, we still don't know for sure what it is.
All we know is that it is a huge object with a number of peculiar characteristics, none
of which match those of an asteroid or other piece of astronomical objects.
Speculation that the object is a probe sent from another planet, similar to the way we
send probes from Earth to study space and other planets, has kept some researchers on
the edge of their seats with excitement over the possibility that we are being observed
by a piece of advanced technology likely made by civilization living far from us.
We should approach such objects with respect and maintain an open mind, even if they do
not seem to match up with anything we've ever seen in space before, because our galaxy has
hundreds upon thousands of planets.
Along with the finding of strange objects in space, mysterious noises have also been
observed.
A NASA probe that has orbited the solar system and is currently travelling outside it, has
recently detected a mysterious plasma hum upon entering interstellar space.
The legendary Voyager 1 spacecraft, which has been exploring the solar system for four
decades and is now more than 14 billion miles from Earth, made this discovery.
Voyager 1 has been on many space missions, including the discovery of lightning strikes
in Jupiter's atmosphere and the study of how the solar wind diminished in the outer solar
system.
As Voyager 1 continues to move away from the Sun, it is collecting data on the plasma in
its close surroundings.
Since 2012, scientists have transformed the Voyager 1's tools and sent it to an entirely
new part of outer space yet to be explored.
This transition occurred when Voyager 1 entered the heliosphere after crossing The Heliopause.
The Heliopause is a region of space where the solar wind does not have sufficient power
to keep back the interstellar medium that surrounds our Galactic neighborhood.
Because of its small frequency bandwidth, the region is typically quiet and can be compared
to a monotone environment.
"We're detecting the faint persistent hum of interstellar gas," said Stella Koch Ocker,
a PhD student at Cornell University who spearheaded the new research.
Every few years, the solar wind in this heliopause area pushes back, causing shock waves to be
picked up by Voyager 1.
Even at this rate, the outstanding Voyager 1 mission catches this plasma hum, leading
scientists to believe that interstellar activity is significantly lower than previously assumed.
James Cordes, a senior author and astronomer at Cornell, commented on the unusual hum,
comparing it to detecting a lightning burst in a rainstorm before it calms.
Scientists once thought that only through these shocks could Voyager 1 measure plasma
density in interstellar space, but now that they've heard this hum, they can use it to
track the interstellar medium between shocks, which will assist them in understanding much
more about the vast region of space that no one has studied.
Coming back to Orion!
There is now even more evidence that a strange star system perched on the nose of the constellation
Orion may contain the most unusual sort of planet in the known universe: a single planet
orbiting three suns at the same time.
The star system, known as GW Orionis (or GW Ori) and located around 1,300 light-years
from Earth, is an appealing subject for research because it looks like a big bull's-eye in
the sky, with three dusty, orange rings nested inside one another.
Three stars reside at the center of that bull's-eye, two locked in a tight binary orbit with each
other and a third spinning wildly about the other two.
Triple-star systems are uncommon in the universe, but GW Ori gets even weirder the closer astronomers
look.
Researchers examined GW Ori using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA)
telescope in Chile in 2020 and determined that the system's three dust rings are really
misaligned with one another, with the innermost ring swinging violently in its orbit.
The scientists argued that a young planet, or the makings of one, might be disrupting
the gravitational stability of GW Ori's delicate triple-ring structure.
If verified, it would be the first triple-sun planet (or Circumtriple planet) discovered
in the known universe.
An article published on September 17 in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical
Society provides further evidence for the existence of such an unusual planet.
Based on studies of other dust rings (or "protoplanetary disks") elsewhere in the cosmos, the study
authors used 3D simulations to explore how the puzzling gaps in the star system's rings
may have evolved.
The scientists explored two hypotheses: either the break in GW Ori's rings was caused by
the torque produced by the system's three whirling stars, or the break happened when
a planet formed within one of the rings.
The researchers came to the conclusion that there is insufficient turbulence in the rings
for the stellar torque hypothesis to work.
Rather, the simulations imply that the presence of a massive, Jupiter-sized planet — or
maybe multiple planets — is the more likely explanation for the rings' unusual structure
and behavior.
If future studies of the system confirm that notion, GW Ori might be "the first evidence
of a circumtriple planet carving a gap in real time," according to lead research author
Jeremy Smallwood of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Unfortunately, a hypothetical observer of this possibly-planet would not be able to
see all three suns rise and set in the sky; the two stars at the center of the system
move in such a tight binary orbit that they would appear as one great star, with the third
swooping around them, according to the researchers.
However, if verified, the presence of this world would demonstrate that planets may develop
under a broader range of circumstances than scientists previously thought.
If three suns and a swaying jumble of dust rings aren't enough to wreck a young planet,
what is?
What do you think?
Let us know in the comments section below.