The Human Orrery: Distant Objects on the Outer Ring
Another feature of the Human Orrery is its outer metal ring, which lies along
the outside edge of the red path marked on the diagram below (the scale is in
metres). The outer ring shows the direction to objects which could not be
displayed within the confines of the exhibit. These objects are
listed below and their significance is also explained. (For a full list of
the outer ring objects click here)
Gravitational Lens
Located in the Constellation: Pisces
Description: The Gravitational lens in question is the Galaxy
Cluster 0024+1654 (5 billion light years away). This is a very large cluster
of galaxies which bends the incoming light from a more distant galaxy (10
billion light years away), magnifying and distorting the image. The Galaxy
Cluster is referred to as a Gravitational Lens since it acts similarly to a
pair of glasses but here instead of glass altering the image, it is actually
gravity doing the bending.
Picture credit: NASA.
Further Info
M74
Located in the Constellation: Pisces
Description: M74 belongs to the "Sc" galaxy type, meaning that it
is a loose spiral galaxy. It lies approximately 35 million light years away.
It was discovered in 1780 and recently two supernovae have been observed
within it.
Image credit: NASA.
Further Info
Hamal
Located in the Constellation: Aries
Description: Hamal (or alpha Arietis) is the brightest star in the
constellation Aries (apparent magnitude of 2.0). This K-Type star is located
65.9 light years away. It is also sometimes referred to as "ras al-hamal" or
"head of the sheep" to distinguish it from the constellation in which it
lies.
Image credit:
James B. Kaler, copyright.
Further Info
Sedna (on 2005 January 1)
Located in the Constellation: Aries
Description: Soon after it was discovered, on 2003 November 14,
Sedna was seriously considered as the "tenth planet" in the Solar System.
The "planet" is approximately two-thirds the diameter of Pluto. Such a size
was (up until recently) thought to be a considerable figure for an object
beyond Pluto. However with the discovery, announced on 2005 July 29, of 2003
UB313, the debate about a "tenth planet" and the actual definition of a
"planet" rages on. The diagram displays the diameters of Earth, our Moon,
Mars, Pluto, Sedna, Charon (Pluto's orbiting body), Quaoar (another new
"planet") and 2003 UB313 (the most recent discovery).
Picture credit: BBC.
Further Info
The Pleiades
Located in the Constellation: Taurus
Description: Other names for this open cluster of stars include
"The Seven Sisters" and M45. The Pleiades have been found to reside
approximately 440 light years away and have been used as a tool to measure
the distance to other objects in the night sky. The cluster acquires its
captivating looks from
reflection nebulosity where light from the brightest
stars reflects off of dust from their stellar birth. The majority of stars
in the Pleiades are hot blue stars.
Image credit: NASA.
Further Info
The Hyades
Located in the Constellation: Taurus
Description: About 150 light years away, the Hyades are the nearest
open cluster to the Sun (apart from the Ursa Major cluster, but that appears
on the sky as well dispersed individual stars). Their distance can be found
from knowledge of their common convergence point (near Betelgeuse), radial
velocity and proper motion.
Image credit:
Till Credner & Sven Kohle, AlltheSky.com, copyright.
Further Info
Crab Nebula
Located in the Constellation: Taurus
Description: The Crab
Nebula is the remains of a supernova observed
by the Chinese and others in 1054. It lies at a distance of 6500 light years
from Earth and has at its heart a neutron star which rotates 30 times per
second. The NASA image seen here is a combination of optical data from
Hubble (red areas) and X-Ray data from Chandra (blue areas).
Further Info
Castor
Located in the Constellation: Gemini
Description: Castor is the second brightest star in Gemini, after
Pollux. Its magnitude as seen by the naked eye is 1.6 and it is 52 light
years distant. That brightness, however, is the combined effect of not just
one but six stars, in three pairs, all orbiting about each other. It is not
an especially large star, about twice the Sun's diameter.
Image credit:
James B. Kaler, copyright.
Further Info
Pollux
Located in the Constellation: Gemini
Description: Pollux is the brighter of the Gemini twins. At 34
light years from us, it is physically unrelated to Castor. It is an
orange-coloured cool giant. Its diameter of the order of ten times the Sun's
makes it smaller than most cool giants. Pollux emits X-rays and there is
evidence for a hot, outer, magnetically supported corona which could be
similar to the Sun's.
Further Info
55 Cancri
Located in the Constellation: Cancer
Description: 55 Cancri is a multiple planet system with a dust
disc. It is a binary star system: the primary being a 6th magnitude star
similar to our Sun and the companion star being a dim red dwarf. With four
planets in the system, 55 Cancri is possibly the largest extrasolar planetary
system yet discovered. It is located 41 light years from Earth.
Image
acquired from SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France.
Further Info
M67
Located in the Constellation: Cancer
Description: Messier object M67 is an open cluster, a comparatively
close object in Messier's catalogue at a distance of 3 thousand light years.
Image credit:
AAO.
Further Info
Regulus
Located in the Constellation: Leo
Description: Regulus is a first magnitude star and the brightest
star in Leo, one of the most distinctive constellations of the zodiac. It is
at a distance of 77 light years from Earth. The Latin name means "the little
king" or "prince", the reference to a kingly star dating from ancient times.
Image credit:
James B. Kaler, copyright.
Further Info
Wolf 359
Located in the Constellation: Leo
Description: This extremely faint star is the third closest to the
Sun after the Alpha Centauri system and Barnard's Star. It is only about 7.8
light-years from us, in the eastern half of Leo. Wolf 359 is much too faint
to be seen by the naked eye.
Picture credit: Mark Kochte / NASA HST.
Further Info
M87
Located in the Constellation: Virgo
Description: The giant elliptical galaxy M87, also known as Virgo
A, dominates the closest big galaxy cluster to us, the famous Virgo Cluster
(which can, as it extends into the constellation Coma, more accurately be
called the "Coma-Virgo cluster"), and is about 60 million light-years away.
Image credit:
Anglo-Australian Observatory, copyright.
Further Info
(Quasar) 3C273
Located in the Constellation: Virgo
Description: 3C273 is one of the first and brightest Quasars. It
has an absolute magnitude of -26.7 and has a prominent jet. Quasars are very
bright objects at extreme astronomical distances - in this case, several
billion light years away. Due to the extreme luminosity of 3C273, it can
be observed with an amateur astronomer's telescope.
Image credit: Kitt Peak National Observatory (NOAO/AURA/NSF).
Further Info
M104
Located in the Constellation: Virgo
Description: The galaxy M104 is also known as the Sombrero Galaxy
because of the way it looks when seen close to edge-on from Earth. The
galaxy has a large bright core, well-defined spiral arms, a thick dark rim of
obscuring dust around its equatorial plane, and a very pronounced bulge with
many hundreds of globular clusters.
Picture credit: Todd Boroson/NOAO/AURA/NSF.
Further Info
Spica
Located in the Constellation: Virgo
Description: Spica is the brightest star in Virgo. Despite being
260 light years away, Spica is nevertheless a first magnitude star, which
shows how bright it is intrinsically, over 2000 times the solar luminosity.
The apparent brightness in reality results from two stars very close
together, which are hard to study individually. Their orbit around each
other is slightly elliptical, with a period of four days, the separation
between them being just 0.12 Astronomical Units.
Image credit:
James B. Kaler, copyright (Mars was in Virgo in mid-1999).
Further Info
Sco X-1
Located in the Constellation: Scorpius
Description: The low-mass X-ray binary Sco X-1 was the first X-ray
source in the sky, apart from the Sun, to be detected (in 1962, with its
location being determined accurately in 1966). Sco X-1 is not especially
bright visually, but in X-rays it dominates the sky, indeed many imaging
X-ray instruments avoid it as it is too bright for their detectors. The two
components of Sco X-1 are a dense neutron star, and a fainter smaller star
more like the Sun; the former is accreting mass from its smaller companion.
Further Info
Antares
Located in the Constellation: Scorpius
Description: Antares (seen within the yellow/orange cloud in the
picture here) is a red supergiant star that is seven or eight hundred times
larger than the Sun in diameter (i.e. hundreds of millions of times the
volume), but only 10,000 times more luminous and 15 or so times the mass.
Image credit:
Anglo-Australian Obs./Royal Obs. Edinburgh, copyright.
Further Info
Pluto (on 2005 January 1)
Located in the Constellation: Ophiuchus
Description: Pluto is the ninth planet from the sun however due to
its eccentric orbit, it occasionally comes within the orbit of Neptune, thus
becoming the eighth planet from the sun. Upon its discovery in 1930, it was
immediately classified as a planet, although it is now clear that it would
not be regarded as a major planet if it had been found in recent years. It
has a satellite named Charon (and also two very small moons were discovered
recently). Early 2006 saw the launch of the "New Horizons" probe to Pluto,
its journey scheduled to take about ten years. Scientists are hopeful that
it will provide us with much information about the currently most mysterious
planet in our solar system.
Image credit: NASA.
Further Info
Galactic Centre
Located in the Constellation: Sagittarius
Description: The Galactic Centre is considered the heart of our
galaxy, the Milky Way, and lies approximately 26,000 light years away. Many
astronomers believe that at this rotational centre lies a Supermassive Black
Hole which gives rise to a very concentrated radio source. An increased rate
of star formation and destruction in approximately 200 million years is
predicted. The image shown is a radio telescope image of the galactic plane
at a frequency of 408MHz.
Image credit: G. Haslam et al., MPIfR, SkyView.
Further Info
Trifid Nebula
Located in the Constellation: Sagittarius
Description: The Trifid
Nebula or M20 is famous for its three-lobed
appearance. It is a relatively close member of Messier's catalogue being
located at about 5000 light years from earth.
Image credit: Jeff Hester (Arizona State University) and NASA.
Further Info
SagDEG
Located in the Constellation: Sagittarius
Description: The Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy (SagDEG) is
part of the local group of galaxies and was, at the time of its discoverery
in 1994, the nearest known galaxy external to our own. At a distance of
about 88,000 light years it is significantly closer than the Large Magellanic
Cloud which had previously been our closest known companion. SagDEG is
currently undergoing a very close encounter with our own, much larger,
galaxy. This encounter has tidally disrupted SagDEG and caused debris from
it to stretch out into a stream encircling our galaxy.
Picture credit:
David Martinez-Delgado & Gabriel Perez.
Further Info
Neptune (on 2005 January 1)
Located in the Constellation: Capricornus
Description: Neptune is the outermost gas giant in our solar system
and although the smallest of the four gas giants, it is more massive than
Uranus since Neptune's stronger gravitational field has compressed it to a
higher density. There are 2,000 km/h winds of hydrogen, helium, and methane
in its atmosphere, with the absorption of red light by methane leading to the
planet's blue colour. Faint dark rings have been detected around Neptune but
are a lot less substantial than those of Saturn.
Image credit: NASA.
Further Info
M30
Located in the Constellation: Capricornus
Description: Messier object M30 is a globular cluster. These
structures exist when tens of thousands or more stars are bound together by
their respective gravitational fields. It is a relatively close member of
Messier's catalogue being located at about 26 thousand light years from
Earth.
Image credit:
Bill Keel / KPNO.
Further Info
Helix Nebula
Located in the Constellation: Aquarius
Description: This is how our sun may look billions of years from
now. The Helix
Nebula is the closest example of a planetary
nebula created
when a Sun-like star's life ends. The outer gases of the star ejected into
space give the impression, from our viewing direction, of looking down a
helix. What remains of the star at the centre glows in light so energetic it
causes the ejected gas to fluoresce. The star itself will become a white
dwarf.
Image credit: NASA.
Further Info
Uranus (on 2005 January 1)
Located in the Constellation: Aquarius
Description: Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Of the gas
giants, it is the third largest by diameter and fourth largest by mass.
Interestingly its spin axis lies very close to the plane of its orbit around
the Sun, leading to unusual seasons. Uranus also has unique magnetic and
electric field structures. There is a faint ring system around the planet
and 27 known moons as of 2005.
Image credit: NASA.
Further Info
Return to "The Human Orrery" Homepage
Created by Brendan Owens
Updated by Kristina Boneva
Last Revised: 2009 November 6th
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