What exactly is a nebula?
A nebula is an enormous cloud of dust and gas occupying the space between stars and acting as a nursery for new stars The roots of the word come from Latin nebula, which means a “mist, vapor, fog, smoke, exhalation” Nebulae are made up of dust, basic elements such as hydrogen and other ionized gases
Is Earth in a nebula?
The Earth was formed from the nebula that produced the Solar System It is almost universally accepted that the Sun, the planets and their satellites, the asteroids, and the comets of the Oort ‘cloud’ grew from a cloud of gas and dust that contracted under its own gravity
What happens in a nebula?
Nebulae are made of dust and gases—mostly hydrogen and helium Eventually, the clump of dust and gas gets so big that it collapses from its own gravity The collapse causes the material at the center of the cloud to heat up-and this hot core is the beginning of a star
Is a nebula a galaxy?
A nebula is a cloud of dust and gas, usually tens to hundreds of light years across A galaxy is much larger — usually thousands to hundreds of thousands of light years across Nebulae are one of the many things that galaxies are made of, along with stars, black holes, cosmic dust, dark matter and much more
Do nebulas move in space?
The newly-born stars release energy and radiation The moving particles move and push the gas and dust surrounding it in the nebula The cloud and gas moving cause the nebula to shift and change its shape overall
Why is a nebula called a star nursery?
Nebulas are often referred to as “stellar nurseries” because the clouds of gas and dust condense to form baby stars “[The] red emission glows from the light of hydrogen gas excited by energetic newly-formed hot and young stars in the core of the nebula
Is a star bigger than a nebula?
From largest to smallest they are: Universe, galaxy, solar system, star, planet, moon and asteroid
Can nebulae have moons?
One nebula may have many protostars, each of which is destined to be an individual stellar system Around it’s a whirling cloud of residual dust and gas — the very material that can build, over billions of years, a system of planets and moons
How many galaxies are there?
The Hubble Deep Field, an extremely long exposure of a relatively empty part of the sky, provided evidence that there are about 125 billion (125×1011) galaxies in the observable universe
Why are nebulae important?
Planetary nebulae are important objects in astronomy because they play a crucial role in the chemical evolution of the galaxy, returning material to the interstellar medium which has been enriched in heavy elements and other products of nucleosynthesis (such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and calcium)
How do nebulae affect Earth?
Explanation: The closest nebula is the Orion Nebula at more than 1300 light years from Earth It is so remote that nothing that happens there can influence the Earth The only influence is to have beautiful colors and shapes and to let us dream one day to go there and explore them
How many nebulae are there in the universe?
There are believed to be about 20,000 objects called planetary nebulae in the Milky Way Galaxy, each representing gas expelled relatively recently from a central star very late in its evolution Because of the obscuration of dust in the Galaxy, only about 1,800 planetary nebulae have been cataloged
Does black hole have gravity?
Black holes are points in space that are so dense they create deep gravity sinks Beyond a certain region, not even light can escape the powerful tug of a black hole’s gravity
How long do nebulas last?
Planetary nebula are relatively short-lived, and last just a few tens of thousands of years As the outer layers drift away from the star, the remaining core shines brightly and is very hot (100,000°C+) – the core is now a white dwarf star
What is bigger than a nebula?
By nebulae, if you mean the planetary nebulae or supernova nebulae, then Globular clusters are bigger than nebulae
Are nebulae hot?
Some nebula which have star forming regions in them can become very hot ( 10,000 k), but without the stars, the nebula will be very cold Supernova remnants (SNR’s) can be initially even hotter (due to the EXPLOSION of a star!), in the millions of degrees kelvin
Can we see nebula in other galaxies?
The answer is no – unless you count seeing the combined light of many billions of stars From the Northern Hemisphere, the only galaxy outside our Milky Way that’s easily visible to the eye is the great galaxy in the constellation Andromeda, also known as M31
Do nebulae form planets?
The term “planetary nebula” is a misnomer because they are unrelated to planets The term originates from the planet-like round shape of these nebulae observed by astronomers through early telescopes All planetary nebulae form at the end of the life of a star of intermediate mass, about 1-8 solar masses
What is the difference between nebula and nebulae?
Key Difference: ‘Nebula’ is a singular term, and ‘nebulae’ is a plural of nebula Nebula is referred for extended objects consisting mostly of gas and dust ‘Nebulae’ is the other name for Nebula In the earlier time, galaxies were also called nebula by astronomers because of their fuzzy appearance
How old are nebulae?
Now we estimate its distance from us as somewhere around 1500 light years This in turn puts our calculation of the distance it has expanded at a lower number (90 light years instead of 150), and thus dropped the estimated age of the nebula from 20,000 years to somewhere between 5000-8000 years old!Nov 20, 2015
What are two types of nebula?
There are five types of cloudy or nebulous objects in the sky: planetary nebulae, emission nebulae, reflection nebulae, dark nebulae and supernova remnants
How much bigger is the Milky Way than Saturn?
About how many times larger is the diameter of the Milky Way Galaxy than the diameter of Saturn’s rings? (Data: Saturn’s rings are about 270000 km in diameter; the Milky Way is 100000 light-years in diameter
What is bigger than a universe?
No, the universe contains all solar systems, and galaxies Our Sun is just one star among the hundreds of billions of stars in our Milky Way Galaxy, and the universe is made up of all the galaxies – billions of them
What is the biggest thing in space?
The largest known structure in the Universe is called the ‘Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall’, discovered in November 2013 This object is a galactic filament, a vast group of galaxies bound together by gravity, about 10 billion light-years away