In mid afternoon today, Professor Katherine Saavik Ford, who likes to be called “Saavik” by colleagues was selected by National Public Radio (NPR) as only one of 13 astronomers in the United States to talk about the Hubble Space Telescope that has has been orbiting Earth for 19 years.
NPR asks Ford for favorite Hubble images
Since Hubble is about to get” its final tune up,” NPR asked Saavik to share her favorite Hubble image and to explain why it is the one that made her go “wow!”
Ford selected the Orion Nebula. A Nebula is an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen gas, helium gas and plasma. Orion is one of the brightest nebulae, and is visible to the naked eye.
Saavik Ford on the Orion Nebula
Saavik Ford recalled that “I sort of have this memory of being a pretty young kid probably five years old growing up in New York City. I used to go to Hayden Planetarium all the time and there were always these beautiful framed photographs on the wall I always remember the Orion Nebula because it was sort of pink and multi-colored. I just remember being very excited about it.”
Ford continued. “The pictures of Orion grabbed me as a kid and so I have kind of kept an eye out and Hubble has been taking progressively more spectacular looking images. Now, to see the Hubble image is kind of like, wow! It is totally amazing.”
She adds, “Compared to the image I saw when I was a kid it looks like it has depth. This is a three dimensional cloud and all the pink stuff is gas. The brightest stars in the center of the nebula are very big and have blown a bubble in the cloud so there is this gap around it. There is gas and dust that is still on the outer parts of the cloud where they are formed; kind of sitting there where they pushed out.”
Finally, Saavik Ford says, “When the starlight shines on it, the cloud reflects that light.”
For more information on the 13 interviews, go to:
http://www.npr.org/multimedia/2009/05/hubble/
