The Euclid Telescope shows us spectacular panoramas and details of the Horsehead Nebula, also known as Barnard 33 and part of the constellation Orion. The Horsehead Nebula is about 1,375 light-years away from Earth. It is the closest giant star forming region to Earth. It is located south of Rigel, the easternmost part of Orion's famous three-star belt, and is part of the massive Orion Molecular Cloud.
Euclid's advanced imaging technology has produced a spectacular and detailed panorama of the Horsehead Nebula, located in the constellation Orion. The nebula is part of a massive star-forming region, and Euclid captured it vividly in high resolution in just one hour. This observation is expected to discover faint, young objects and will be particularly valuable for studying the unique star-forming conditions affected by the bright star Sigma Orioni. Image source: ESA/Euclidean/Euclidean Association/NASA, image processing: J.-C.Cuillandre (CEAParis-Saclay), G.Anselmi, CCBY-SA3.0IGO
Many other telescopes have captured images of the Horsehead Nebula, but none can achieve such a clear, wide view from just one observation like the Euclid Telescope. Euclid captured this image of the Horsehead Nebula in about an hour, demonstrating the mission's ability to image an unprecedented region of the sky in high detail very quickly.
In Euclid's new observations of this stellar nursery, scientists expect to find many faint, never-before-seen Jupiter-mass planets, as well as young brown dwarfs and small stars.
"We are particularly interested in this region because star formation takes place under very specific conditions," explains Eduardo Martín Guerrero de Escalante of the Canary Institute of Astrophysics in Tenerife, a Euclid scientist.
This is a section taken from a full view of Euclid's Horsehead Nebula, using the high resolution of the VIS instrument. This is nine times higher than the NISP resolution selected for panoramas; the practical reason for this is to limit the format of the full image to a size that is easy to download. The tangential view demonstrates the power of Euclid, which is that it can obtain extremely clear images of large areas of the sky with a single pointing. Although this image represents only a small portion of the entire color view, the same quality image as shown here was obtained over the entire area. Image source: ESA/Euclid/EuclidConsortium/NASA, image processing: J.-C.Cuillandre (CEAParis-Saclay), G.Anselmi, CCBY-SA3.0IGO
These peculiar conditions are caused by radiation from the very bright Betelgeuse Orionis, a star located above Horsehead and just outside the field of view of the Euclidean telescope (the star is so bright that if the telescope were pointed directly at it, nothing would be visible).
Ultraviolet radiation from Sigma Orioni causes the clouds behind Horsehead to glow, and the thick clouds behind Horsehead itself block light from directly behind it; this makes Horsehead appear dim. The nebula itself is composed mostly of cold hydrogen molecules, which generate little heat or light. Astronomers study the differences in star formation conditions between dark and bright clouds.
This is a silhouette of the Euclid Horsehead Nebula at the resolution of the NISP instrument. Image source: ESA/Euclid/EuclidConsortium/NASA, image processing: J.-C.Cuillandre (CEAParis-Saclay), G.Anselmi, CCBY-SA3.0IGO
Sigma Orioni itself belongs to a cluster of more than a hundred stars, known as an open cluster. However, astronomers do not know the complete picture of all the stars belonging to this cluster. Eduardo added: "The Gaia telescope has revealed many new members, but we have already seen new candidate stars, brown dwarfs and planetary mass objects in this Euclid image, so we hope that Euclid will give us a more complete picture."