This is the "elephant trunk nebula" -- a close up view with a new telescope, photographed with a special visit from my neighbor Carlee and her daughter.
This nebula is 2,400 light years from earth. It is 100 light years from top to bottom (you would have to travel at the speed of light for 100 years to get from the top to the bottom).
The most unique thing about this nebula is what lies at the top, in its head. There, planets and moons are likely forming as we speak (or have formed at some point in the last 2,400 light years). Specifically, astronomers have found a "circumstellar disk" surrounding one of the stars (LkHa 349c) in the head of the nebula. These disks contain gas, dust, and other materials used in creating planets.
Planet creation is quite interesting...
There is no definitive answer as to how planets are formed (I suppose you could simply say, "God made them" and call it a day). Here's one possible explanation: Start with a young star. The star might be surrounded by a disk of matter. The matter is spinning around the star. Eventually, particles in that spinning disk clump together, getting bigger and bigger. Over billions of years, these particles become planets (the Earth is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old).
When writing these posts, I often use expressions like "Estimated," "Presumably," "Apparently," and "Supposedly." These words are meant to tone down the hubris of humanity--the arrogance of thinking that we know everything (or that there is even an answer to everything). It really is OK to say, "I don't know."
I was watching an interview of an astrophysicist who said that he knew the age of the universe (~14 billion years old) with such certainty that it would be like telling you how old you were to within 5 minutes of your actual day/time of birth. But new arguments support the idea that the universe is actually ~27 billion years old. How can the scientific community be so far apart?
Some people claim that there is no intelligent life amongst the ~2 *trillion* galaxies we know of. I don't know how we can be so certain, when we still don't have a complete picture of our own galaxy (this still blows my mind!). Like most things, our understanding is always changing and evolving, and the topics I post about are no exception.
Full size version here: https://astrob.in/full/nfa8fa/0/
This nebula is 2,400 light years from earth. It is 100 light years from top to bottom (you would have to travel at the speed of light for 100 years to get from the top to the bottom).
The most unique thing about this nebula is what lies at the top, in its head. There, planets and moons are likely forming as we speak (or have formed at some point in the last 2,400 light years). Specifically, astronomers have found a "circumstellar disk" surrounding one of the stars (LkHa 349c) in the head of the nebula. These disks contain gas, dust, and other materials used in creating planets.
Planet creation is quite interesting...
There is no definitive answer as to how planets are formed (I suppose you could simply say, "God made them" and call it a day). Here's one possible explanation: Start with a young star. The star might be surrounded by a disk of matter. The matter is spinning around the star. Eventually, particles in that spinning disk clump together, getting bigger and bigger. Over billions of years, these particles become planets (the Earth is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old).
When writing these posts, I often use expressions like "Estimated," "Presumably," "Apparently," and "Supposedly." These words are meant to tone down the hubris of humanity--the arrogance of thinking that we know everything (or that there is even an answer to everything). It really is OK to say, "I don't know."
I was watching an interview of an astrophysicist who said that he knew the age of the universe (~14 billion years old) with such certainty that it would be like telling you how old you were to within 5 minutes of your actual day/time of birth. But new arguments support the idea that the universe is actually ~27 billion years old. How can the scientific community be so far apart?
Some people claim that there is no intelligent life amongst the ~2 *trillion* galaxies we know of. I don't know how we can be so certain, when we still don't have a complete picture of our own galaxy (this still blows my mind!). Like most things, our understanding is always changing and evolving, and the topics I post about are no exception.
Full size version here: https://astrob.in/full/nfa8fa/0/
