#waterfall nebula

[spacewonder19]

Cosmic Waterfall Herbig-Haro 222 ©

[of-stars-and-dust]

Astronomy Picture of the Day

2025 December 31

HH-222: The Waterfall Nebula

A starfield filled with a diffuse red glow has an unusual nebula on the lower left. The nebula has bright red filaments that curve down and appear to be reminiscent of a waterfall on Earth.

Image Credit & Copyright: Mike Selby

Explanation: What created the Waterfall Nebula? The origin is still being researched. The structure, officially designated Herbig-Haro 222, appears in the region of NGC 1999 in the Great Orion Molecular Cloud complex. The elongated gaseous stream stretches about ten light years but appears similar to a long waterfall on Earth. Recent observations indicate that HH-222 is likely a gigantic gaseous bow shock, similar to a wave of water caused by a fast-moving ship. The origin of this shock wave is thought to be a jet outflow from the multiple star system V380 Orionis off the lower left of the frame. Therefore, gas does not flow along the waterfall, but rather the entire structure moves toward the upper right. The Waterfall Nebula lies about 1,500 light years away toward the constellation of Orion. The featured image was captured earlier this month from El Sauce Observatory in Chile.

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)

NASA Official: Amber Straughn

A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,

NASA Science Activation

& Michigan Tech. U.

[spinningblueball]

Waterfall Nebula

[humanoidhistory]

Behold the Waterfall Nebula (HH-222), seen in the region of NGC 1999 in the Great Orion Molecular Cloud complex.

Image Credit: Z. Levay (STScI/AURA/NASA), T.A. Rector (U. Alaska Anchorage) & H. Schweiker (NOAO/AURA/NSF), KPNO, NOAO

(NASA)

[alxndrasplace]

(NASA)  What created the Waterfall Nebula? No one knows. The structure seen in the region of NGC 1999 in the Great Orion Molecular Cloud complex is one of the more mysterious structures yet found on the sky. Designated HH-222, the elongated gaseous stream stretches about ten light years and emits an unusual array of colors. One hypothesis is that the gas filament results from the wind from a young star impacting a nearby molecular cloud. That would not explain, however, why the Waterfall and fainter streams all appear to converge on a bright but unusual non thermal radio source located toward the upper left of the curving structure. Another hypothesis is that the unusual radio source originates from a binary system containing a hot white dwarf, neutron star, or black hole, and that the Waterfall is just a jet from this energetic system. Such systems, though, are typically strong X-rays emitters, and no X-rays have been detected. For now, this case remains unsolved. Perhaps well-chosen future observations and clever deductive reasoning will unlock the true origin of this enigmatic wisp in the future.

[earthlynation-blog]

waterfall nebula by the final frontier