5.
Horsehead Nebula
(new infrared view)
This Hubble image, captured and released to celebrate the telescope’s 23rd year in orbit, shows
part of the sky in the constellation of Orion (The Hunter). Rising like a giant seahorse from turbulent
waves of dust and gas is the Horsehead Nebula, otherwise known as Barnard 33.
This image shows the region in infrared light, which has longer wavelengths than visible light and
can pierce through the dusty material that usually obscures the nebula’s inner regions. The result
is a rather ethereal and fragile-looking structure, made of delicate folds of gas — very different to
the nebula’s appearance in visible light.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI)
“I am one of the professional astronomers from the generation that grew
while the amazing pictures of Hubble were released. As a young girl I heard
a talk in a planetarium about supernova, red giants, white dwarfs, black
holes which I found extremely fascinating. This was just around the time that
the Hubble was repaired and its first astonishing images were released to the
public.
“In 1995 the Pillars of Creation [#82] was printed full page in one of the
main Dutch newspapers that we read at home. I cut the picture from the
newspaper and it must have been on my bedroom wall for many years
after, until the paper started turning yellow. The image shows three immense
beautiful dust pillars, surrounded by hot bright stars that are irradiating them.
Deep inside these pillars new young stars and their planets are born.
“The images that Hubble released fascinated me. In fact, I found it extremely
disappointing to go stargazing with an amateur telescope. It was nothing in
comparison to the Hubble images. So, indirectly, Hubble demotivated me to
become an observational astronomer. But I was extremely interested in trying
to understand what the pictures depicted. Nearly 10 years later I started my
Ph.D. in Theoretical Astrophysics studying the evolution of massive stars, and
binary stars in particular.”
— Dr. Selma E. de Mink
Assistant Professor
University of Amsterdam
Netherlands