The Big Island Nebula

A team of Canadian astronomers working at the world-famous James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii have announced the discovery of a remarkable new star-forming nebula. This image of the region, provided by Lorne Avery of the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, shows the outline of strong 850µm emission from dust warmed by numerous young stars that have formed recently within the nebula. It is customary in astronomy for the discoverers of new objects to suggest an appropriate name. The discovery team will recommend that the IAU adopt the name "Big Island Nebula" for this remarkable region. Situated at a distance of 500 pc, in the vicinity of the famous Horsehead Nebula in Orion, this object will no doubt become well known to astronomers and the public alike because of its remarkable resemblance to the Big Island of Hawaii which, by coincidence, is the home of the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. Rumours of a Nobel Prize in recognition of this outstanding advance were dubbed "premature conjecture" by the award committee, although a spokesperson for the committee described the discovery as "remarkable".

Actually, apart from the geographic labels, this is an exact, unretouched 850µm SCUBA image of NGC2024 obtained by the Canadian Star Formation Consortium. This is precisely how the gaia image came up on the computer screen. I was struck by the obvious resemblance to the Big Island. The field shown is about 7 x 10 arc minutes.

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