LL Orionis: When Cosmic Winds Collide
Explanation:
This
arcing,
graceful structure is actually a bow shock about half a
light-year across, created as the wind from young star LL Orionis
collides with the
Orion Nebula flow.
Adrift in Orion's
stellar nursery
and still in its formative years,
variable star LL Orionis produces a wind more
energetic than
the wind from our own
middle-aged sun.
As the fast stellar wind runs into slow moving gas a shock front is
formed, analogous to the
bow
wave of a boat moving through water or
a plane traveling at supersonic speed.
The slower gas is flowing away from the Orion Nebula's hot central star
cluster, the
Trapezium, located off the lower right hand edge
of the picture.
In
three
dimensions,
LL Ori's wrap-around shock front is shaped like a
bowl that appears brightest when viewed along the "bottom" edge.
The complex
stellar nursery in Orion shows a myriad of similar
fluid
shapes associated with
star formation, including
the bow shock surrounding a faint star at the upper right.
Part of
a mosaic
covering the
Great Nebula
in Orion,
this composite color image was recorded
in 1995 by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
