Orion Nebula Gets New Milepost Marker, Now Closer 93
twilight30 writes "Discovery News is reporting that 'One of the most famous and scrutinized heavenly objects is 10 to 20 percent closer than we thought, say two teams of radio astronomers who have made some of the most precise cosmic distance measurements ever, with a telescope nearly as big as Earth. The Orion Nebula is the closest major stellar nursery to Earth, so it has been heavily studied to learn about the lives of stars. Its distance from Earth, however, has long been a matter of uncertainty, with an estimate made about 25 years ago in need of revision.'"
question: (Score:0, Interesting)
Re:question: (Score:1, Interesting)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/10/10/scitime110.xml [telegraph.co.uk]
Re:"a telescope nearly as big as Earth" (Score:3, Interesting)
Combine the measurements for increased accuracy (Score:4, Interesting)
Bower's new measurement is 1,270 +/- 76 LY.
Assuming both error bars are correct, then by combining the two measurements we get between 1,299 LY and 1,346 LY.
Reid's new measurement is 1,350 +/- 23 LY.
So combining again, we can conclude the Orion Nebula is between 1,327 and 1,346 LY away, or 1,336.5 LY +/- 9.5 LY.