2025年11月13日
猎户座与奔跑者星云
影像提供与版权: R. Jay Gabany
说明: 很少有宇宙景象能像猎户座大星云一样激发人们的想像力。从肉眼看来，这个离我们最近的大型恒星形成区域看似一个淡淡的天体模糊斑点，而在清晰而色彩丰富的望远镜影像中，它则横跨整个画面。猎户座大星云在梅西耶星表中被编号为M42，其发光的气体和尘埃环绕着炽热的年轻恒星。 M42的直径约40光年，位于一个巨大的分子云边缘，该分子云距离我们仅1,500光年，与太阳位于银河系的同一条旋臂上。包括图中左侧尘埃弥漫的蓝色反射星云NGC 1977（也称为奔跑的人星云）在内，这些诞生中的星云仅代表我们银河附近中丰富的恒星形成物质的一小部分。在研究较深入的恒星育婴室中，天文学家也发现了许多疑似处于早期阶段的太阳系。
明日的图片: pixels in space
Due to the lapse in federal government funding, NASA is not updating APOD website. We sincerely regret this inconvenience.
由于美国联邦政府资金中断，NASA目前暂停更新APOD网站。对此带来的不便，我们深感抱歉。
英文原文:
Explanation: Few cosmic vistas can excite the imagination like The Great Nebula in Orion. Visible as a faint, bland celestial smudge to the naked-eye, the nearest large star-forming region sprawls across this sharp colorful telescopic image. Designated M42 in the Messier Catalog, the Orion Nebula’s glowing gas and dust surrounds hot, young stars. About 40 light-years across, M42 is at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1,500 light-years away that lies within the same spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy as the Sun. Including dusty bluish reflection nebula NGC 1977, also known as the Running Man nebula at left in the frame, the natal nebulae represent only a small fraction of our galactic neighborhood’s wealth of star-forming material. Within the well-studied stellar nursery, astronomers have also identified what appear to be numerous infant solar systems.
