I work out of our office on One Market Street in San Francisco. My standup-desk is right across from our Gallery at One Market. One of our newer exhibits is called Powers of Design. It was first featured at the Technology Entertainment & Design (TED) conference last year. Powers of Design depicts the size of everything from the inconceivably small to the mind-blowingly large. I thought I'd cover the exhibit elements, one at a time, over several months. I started small and am working my way up.
The Great Orion Nebula as photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. Image courtesy of NASA, ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team.
1017 MAGNITUDE
100,000,000,000,000,000 m
10 Light-years
Great Orion Nebula
24 light-years
Orion was a hunter in Greek mythology, but as one of the brightest nebulae in the night sky, the Orion Nebula (M42) doesn’t require much hunting to find it.
The middle “star” in the sword of the Orion constellation and located 21 light-years from Earth, M42 is the closest massive star formation to our planet, an estimated 24 light-years across, and has a mass 2,000 times that of the sun.
As one of the most studied celestial features, the nebula has revealed much about how stars and planetary systems are formed and is considered a “stellar nursery” where new stars are always being born.
The nebula is 1,000 times larger than our entire solar system. OK, I feel small now.
Thanks to Global Content Manager, Matt Tierney, for the images and text that comprise the exhibit element. This is just one of the many exhibits in the gallery at One Market in San Francisco. The gallery is open to the public on Wednesdays from 12 pm to 5 pm, and admission is free. Visit us.
Previous posts on this topic include:
- 10-15 Protons and Neutrons
- 10-14 Atomic Nucleus of a Uranium Atom
- 10-13 Nada, Zilch, Zero, Zip
- 10-12 Gamma Rays
- 10-11 Fluorine Ion
- 10-10 Wavelength of Hard X-Rays
- 10-9 Carbon Nanotubes
- 10-8 Molecular Transport Nano Robot
- 10-7 HIV Virus
- 10-6 Red Blood Cells
- 10-5 Sand
- 10-4 Microelectromechanical Systems
- 10-3 Sonata Silicium Watch Components
- 10-2 Lego
- 10-1 Prosthetic Fairing
- 100 Biome Concept Car
- 101 Ma'erkang Housing Reconstruction
- 102 Shanghai Tower
- 103 Bay Bridge
- 104 Masdar City
- 105 Palm Islands
- 106 The Moon
- 107 Earth
- 108 Jupiter
- 109 The Sun
- 1010 Distance Light Travels in 34 Seconds
- 1011 Distance from Jupiter to the Sun
- 1012 Distance from Pluto to the Sun
- 1013 Voyager 2
- 1014 The Solar System
- 1015 Cat's Eye Nebula
- 1016 Pillars of Creation
Future blog posts will cover:
- 1018 M15 Globular Cluster
- 1019 Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy
- 1020 Triangulum Galaxy
- 1021 The Milky Way
- 1022 IC 1101
- 1023 Local Group of Galaxies
- 1024 The Local Supercluster
- 1025 3C 273
- 1026 Outer Limit of the Universe
Measurement is alive in the lab.
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