The Orion Nebula owes its appearance to ionizing ultraviolet light emitted by the hot young stars in the Trapezium. M42 and M43 are themselves part of a giant molecular cloud that spans much of Orion (and includes the reflection nebula M78). It’s actually not that big as star-forming regions go (certainly compared to something like M8, the Lagoon Nebula, which is approximately three times larger).Īlthough initially cataloged as separate objects, contemporary images clearly show that M42 and M43 belong to the same nebula, partially obscured by a band of dark dust. Today, we recognize the Orion Nebula as the nearest star-forming region to our own sun.
![moon atlas peiresc moon atlas peiresc](https://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/cla/images/lores/f21.jpg)
In 1883 English astronomer Andrew Ainslie Common captured an even better image, ushering in a new era of astronomy. Perhaps the most prescient description of M42 came in 1789 when William Herschel called it: “an unformed fiery mist, the chaotic material of future Suns.”Ī century later, American astronomer Henry Draper made a 51-minute exposure of M42: the very first photographic image of a nebula. Whatever Messier’s motivation for including such well-known (and un-cometlike) objects, he clearly had a scientific interest in M42, observing it multiple times in 1771 and publishing a very accurate (for the time) drawing of the Great Nebula in the appendix of his catalog.Ĭharles Messier’s Sketch of M42 Nebula ( source) Both nebulae were observed by Charles Messier in 1769 and subsequently added (along with the Beehive Cluster and the Pleiades) to the first edition of his famous catalog – apparently to ensure that his total exceeded the 42 objects in Lacaille’s 1755 list. In 1733 the smaller, fainter M43 was discovered by de Mairan. Huygens also resolved the four stars at the heart of the nebula: the famous Trapezium (formally designated as Theta 1 Orionis). Hodierna was the first to sketch the nebula in 1654, followed by Christiaan Huygens (after whom the brightest part of the nebula is named) and Le Gentil. That all changed after the invention of the telescope, with the French astronomer Peiresc making the first recorded observation of the nebula in 1611, followed by the Jesuit astronomer Johann Baptist Cysatus who published an independent discovery in 1619.
![moon atlas peiresc moon atlas peiresc](http://a4.mzstatic.com/us/r30/Purple20/v4/c0/3e/6c/c03e6c8e-8803-a7d8-636e-78a14ad64c8f/sc1024x768.jpeg)
The area of blue nebulosity to the left of M42 is popularly known as the Running Man Nebula (NGC 1973, 1975, and 1977) When Was M42 Discovered and What Do We Know About it?ĭespite its obvious fuzziness to the naked eye, astronomers and scholars of the pre-telescopic era paid scant attention to M42, other than assigning it the stellar classification of Theta (Θ) Orionis. Image of the Orion Nebula by the author north is to the left and west is up.