The Orion Nebula: Where Stars Are Born [Hardcover]

C. Robert O'Dell (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 067401183X | ISBN-13: 978-0674011830 | Publication Date: October 31, 2003

The glowing cloud in Orion's sword, the Orion Nebula is a thing of beauty in the night sky; it is also the closest center of massive star formation--a stellar nursery that reproduces the conditions in which our own Sun formed some 4.5 billion years ago. The study of the Orion Nebula, focused upon by ever more powerful telescopes from Galileo's time to our own, clarifies how stars are formed, and how we have come to understand the process. C. Robert O'Dell has spent a lifetime studying Orion, and in this book he explains what the Nebula is, how it shines, its role in giving birth to stars, and the insights it affords into how common (or rare) planet formation might be.

An account of astronomy's extended engagement with one remarkable celestial object, this book also tells the story of astronomy over the last four centuries. To help readers appreciate the Nebula and its secrets, O'Dell unfolds his tale chronologically, as astrophysical knowledge developed, and our knowledge of the Nebula and the night sky improved.

Because he served as chief scientist for the Hubble Space Telescope, O'Dell conveys a sense of continuity with his professional ancestors as he describes the construction of the world's most powerful observatory. The result is a rare insider's view of this observatory--and, from that unique perspective, an intimate observer's understanding of one of the sky's most instructive and magnificent objects.

(20030124)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

O'Dell, professor of astrophysics emeritus at Rice University and a former chief scientist for the Hubble Space Telescope, is eminently qualified to explain to general readers the nature of the heavenly phenomenon known as the Orion Nebula and the development of our knowledge of it. He deftly does so, and also provides a unique insider's view of the building of the Hubble telescope and an explanation of "how it has revealed a new view of the Orion Nebula." His account is both engaging and clear enough for beginners as he explains the Orion Nebula as "both an object and a process, the process of turning the debris from dying stars into a new generation of stars." The 20 color illustrations (and 27 b&w images) will make this a nice gift for any novice astronomy buff.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

From the first telescopic drawings of it in the 1600s to its revelation as a stellar nursery by the Hubble Space Telescope, the spectacular Orion Nebula has surrendered its secrets incrementally. Scientists have long been struggling with the fundamental impediment in astronomy--the earth's atmosphere--and working around its obscuration of light is the main theme of O'Dell's book, with the Orion Nebula as the exemplar of how, historically, the electromagnetic spectrum has been exploited in astronomy. O'Dell explains the various wavelengths accessible to various instruments, such as the spectrograph, and sketches projects that have lofted them above the atmosphere. Their payoff when pointed at the Orion Nebula, a neighborly 1,500 light years away, is tangible evidence of how collapsing gas and dust form stars and planets. Systematically explaining this process, the author instills a sense of the allure Orion exerts on professionals such as himself, thereby hooking his audience of interested amateurs. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (October 31, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067401183X
• ISBN-13: 978-0674011830
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,069,191 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Only 2 chapters devoted at THE NEBULA !, August 16, 2005

By 

Konstantinos Chatziamallos (Kos island, Greece) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Orion Nebula: Where Stars Are Born (Hardcover)

I feel a bit disappointed because i was expecting a book devoted (and specialised) at the famous ORION NEBULA and instead of that i've read a book covering general astronomy knowledge. The final taste that this book left me is that of a fair, easy-to-read book, but away from the main subject.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The beauty of Star birth, February 17, 2007

By 

Gerald Petrey (Tucson, AZ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Orion Nebula: Where Stars Are Born (Hardcover)

This relatively short book covers a lot of material on astronomy and in a very understandable and thoroughly entertaining way. Mr. O'Dell, a noted scientist who played a big role in the development of the Hubble space telescope, does a beautiful job of blending the facts and history of astronomy into this fascinating tale of the Orion Nebula.

He covers some interesting history of astronomical observations and of the telescope, astrophotography and other detectors. He then goes into many details of the birth and evolution of stars from their initial gravitational collapse inside a molecular cloud to their achieving the nuclear fusion state and reaching hydrostatic equilibrium and then their long life on the main sequence. He also discuses some interesting objects such as brown dwarfs and rouge planets (star wantabes that didn't have the initial mass to ignite fusion). He has a very interesting coverage of the Hubble space telescope's history including the details of the infamous mirror problem and how it happened.

As he gets into the description of the Orion Nebula itself, he covers (and documents with beautiful pictures) many of the amazing features of this relatively nearby young stellar nursery. He discusses the dominant stars such as Theta1C, the numerous proplyds, the visible shock waves and the high speed particle jets emanating from the circumstellar disks.

A particularly thought provoking passage in this book was when Mr. O'Dell described what it would look like to an observer who was within the Orion Nebula Cluster - he painted a spectacular picture inside my mind!

In the latter chapters, he covers topics like planet formation, the possibility of life in the universe, and how scientist are more accurately refining some of the terms of famous Drake equation.

He concludes with a short description of the scientific process and how we have gained more and more understanding of our universe from the works of Ptolemy, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and Einstein. As each added to our knowledge, sometimes we had to let go of older ideas. As Spencer Tracy said in the movie, Inherit the Wind, "Progress has never been a bargain. You have to pay for it. You can have a telephone, but you lose privacy and the charm of distance. You may conquer the air, but the birds will lose their wonder and the clouds will smell of gasoline." As science reveals more answers to the origin of the universe, we sometimes have to abandon the simpler (and perhaps more confronting) explanations.

This is a book that will make you think, open your mind to the beauty of the cosmos, and appreciate the work of those giants on whose shoulders we stand as we gaze to the future and unravel the past of this amazing universe we inhabit.