Willow on the trampoline with a new Hubble Space Telescope shot as background.

Call me an adult with an overactive imagination, a dreamer or a delusional geek but sometimes I just can’t help but wonder … What would my backyard look like if Earth was a little closer to the Orion Nebula?

Ah, now that’s worth pulling out the deck chairs and a pondering over a tequila sunrise.

Hubble’s Sharpest View of the Orion Nebula:
The Orion Nebula is a cavern of tumultuous gas and dust where thousands of stars are forming. The energy released by the young stars transforms their place of birth, whipping their surroundings into fantastic forms.

This image was inspired by Dan Simmon’s book Hyperion. In it there is a planet called God’s Grove. God’s Grove is a forest planet, home of the Templars, whose worship of nature seeks to mold life to preserve and spread it throughout the galaxy. The Templars designed their star ships to look like giant trees.

High resolution images taken of Space are grand and majestic. However, few people have exposure to them. Occasionally I’ll develop a concept like this to utilize these powerful images. I do this for my own gratification but also to hopefully encourage more people to develop an appreciation and desire to learn more about objects in our heavens. The image above uses a Hubble Space Telescope shot of the Orion Nebula.

The Orion Nebula (also known as Messier 42, M42, or NGC 1976) is a diffuse nebula situated south^[b] of Orion‘s Belt. It is one of the brightest nebulae, and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky. M42 is located at a distance of 1,270±76 light years^[2] and is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth. The M42 nebula is estimated to be 24 light years across. Older texts frequently referred to the Orion Nebula as the Great Nebula in Orion or the Great Orion Nebula. Yet older, astrological texts refer to it as Ensis (Latin for “sword”), which was also the name given to the star Eta Orionis, which can be seen close to the nebula from Earth.

The Orion Nebula is one of the most scrutinized and photographed objects in the night sky, and is among the most intensely studied celestial features. The nebula has revealed much about the process of how stars and planetary systems are formed from collapsing clouds of gas and dust. Astronomers have directly observed protoplanetary disks, brown dwarfs, intense and turbulent motions of the gas, and the photo-ionizing effects of massive nearby stars in the nebula.

If you get a chance, read some of Simmon’s books. He does an excellent job of blending classical literature with Science Fiction and also, take the time to look upward and appreciate the majesty of space.