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Orion's Nebula an LL Orionis (the "Bow-Shock" effect)
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This close-up of cosmic clouds and stellar winds features LL Orionis interacting 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 small and graceful structure just above and left of center, is LL Ori's "Cosmic Bow Shock", measuring about 1/2 a LY across.
The slower gas is flowing away from the Orion Nebula's hot central star cluster, the Trapezium, located off the upper left corner of the picture.
In 3D, LL Ori's wrap-around shock front is shaped like a bowl that appears brightest when viewed along the bottom edge.
The beautiful picture is part of a large mosaic view of the complex stellar nursery in Orion, filled with a myriad of fluid shapes associated with star formation.
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(Dettagli)
