Our Galaxy's Greatest Hits

The Horsehead Nebula (AKA Bernard 33), is located near the star Altinak in Orion's Belt. The horse head shape is made by a dark nebula located in front of bright emission nebula IC 434. A dark nebula is space matter that blocks the light of the stars behind it. An Emission nebula, usually made of hydrogen, is matter that is excited by hot stars within, causing it to glow. IC 434 is believed to be primarily lit by an OB (very hot) star named Sigma Orionis.

The Horsehead nebula was discovered at Harvard University in 1888. The Horsehead Nebula is about 1500 light years from Earth. It's approximately 2.7 x 1.8 light years big.

The Horsehead nebula is part of a much larger nebula that is a stellar nursery for thousands of stars.

The Orion Nebula, AKA M42 or NGC1976, is one of the most famous celestial objects. It can be seen with the naked eye as the middle star in Orion's Belt(although binoculars help), and it is about 1300 light years from Earth. The Orion nebula is about 2.5 light years across.

The Orion Nebula is part of a much larger nebula that spans across the constellation of Orion, and it includes the Horsehead Nebula, Flame Nebula, and Bernards Loop. The Nebula is a place where baby stars are born.

Four main stars, called the Trapezium, can be easily seen inside the nebula. Two of these stars are binary (where one star orbits another star) so in total there are six stars in the Trapezium. However, there are over 700 stars in the nebula that are small and difficult to see.

Astronomers believe there are about 153 protoplanetary disks in the Orion nebula, or baby solar systems. They believe this is what our solar system looked like 4.6 billion years ago. Currently they appear as tiny glowing disks with a small star in the middle.

The Pleiades is an open cluster in the constellation Taurus. There are seven stars that are the most visible, although the cluster contains over 1,000 members. This is another celestial object that is visible with the naked eye. The cluster contains mostly blue-hot stars which have formed in the last 100 million years, making them very young. The Pleiades is a winter constellation in the northern hemisphere and a summer constellation in the southern hemisphere. The Pleiades have been mentioned by all ancient cultures of the world.

Saturn is one of the most interesting things to view in the sky. It can be seen without a telescope as a white dot, but with a telescope, even a small one, you can see it's rings and sometimes 3 or more moons. It's beautiful.

Saturn is nine times the size of Earth, and is made of mostly hydrogen gas. It has a very low density. So low it would float if put in a giant bathtub. Saturn has 7 main rings, made of small rocks covered in ice. The rings are believed to be separated by the gravitational pull of larger moons within the rings. Saturn also has one of the most active moons in the solar system, Titan.

The moon is one of the best things to look at in the night sky. It can be observed with the naked eye, and when binoculars or a telescope is used, great details can be seen. The moon is made up of craters and peaks. Since there isn't much of an atmosphere, there is no wind, rain, or erosion to change the way the land looks.

Humans have successfully been to the moon six times between 1969 and 1972. One famous mission, Apollo 13, didn't make it all the way. The moon is the closest celestial object to Earth, and therefore one of the most interesting to observe.