Zooming in on the Horsehead Nebula (3D)

This video zooms into part of the sky in the constellation of Orion (The Hunter), showing the new infrared Hubble observations of the Horsehead Nebula (otherwise known as Barnard 33). The video ends on a 3D fly-through of the nebula.

The video continues with a scientific visualisation of a flight into the infrared Horsehead. The computer graphics model is intended to be scientifically reasonable, but not fully accurate.

This new infrared image has been released to celebrate 23 years of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The data in this video come from Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3, supplemented by ground-based observations from the European Southern Observatory's Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA).

More information and downlaod-options:

Credit:
NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA); G. Bacon, T. Borders, L. Frattare, Z. Levay, and F. Summers (Viz 3D team, STScI); ESO.

[robdavidson]

My great, great grandfather’s daughter Williamina Fleming discovered The Horsehead Nebula back in 1888 while working cataloging stars and galaxies. She also was the first to discover and catalog dwarf stars. All this off of glass plates and the technology they had back then. I wish she were here to see what her discovery looks like now! Amazing….

[denisstlaurent]

Now that was very cool, I did not know it was in the Orion constellation. Hope to see more like this.

[keithmayes]

A beautiful sight. I wish it looked like that through my telescope, some chance! Still, I will have a go at imaging it this winter, managed the Orion Nebula last winter and now dying to image the Horsehead, one of the most famous and beautiful in the sky, if not the most.

[addicoo]

While in college in Arizona some thirty years ago I had a look at this through the uni’s telescope, what a wonderful site!

[xmalandy]

I've been there!!!, in a dream I had.

[NetTubeUser]

Absolutely FANTASTIC! I'm always speechless by space.

[Space_Rebel]

The footage without music makes it better.

[okamijubei]

Look at that star on top of it's head

[derrellthomas]

There's some fantastic stuff going on out there!

[altonwilliams]

That was well worth a minute of my time. 👍🔭

[richardparks]

Just absolutely breathtaking I’ve seen the Hubble since the very beginning of its creation where it’s primarily Miral was faulty, where they fixed it with costar . And Hubble cheap still putting out breathtaking images so for at least 25 years the Hubble has impressed me

[mariadaluzmoutinho]

Fico espantada com a ligação do Universo com a nossa vida!!? Formas que se encontram e nos despertam para a formação de coisas vivas...é de facto impressionante!!

[fyRe]

Once again the cameramen is doing an amazing job for us!

[olgierdogden]

A lovely feature. I’ve often thought that the Horse-head Nebula looks more like a howling Baboon looking leftwards, but during the early days when it was recognised for what it is there were many horses around while Baboons lived in Africa.

[carolvega]

Why is this horrifying and beautiful simultaneously?

[kextrz]

It looks like a seahorse for most of the way, and then, at the end, it starts to vaguely ressemble a centaur. Not as mesmerizing as the pillars of creation (what is?), but still awe-inspiring!

[deanmoncaster]

Today I found out where the horse head nebula is located!

[robny]

Looks like the shrooms I ate as a kid.
Tasty lookin cap!!!

[cybergothika]

From some other planet it may have a totally different figure and perspective unless it is exactly the opposite direction, reverse but still familiar.

[nonjaninja]

I think the cobra nebula would have been a fitting name too. It's always sort of looked like a cobra with its hood to me.