File:2013 GeMS Orion Bullets (2013 orion legacy).tiff

English: Gemini Observatory Legacy Image - Orion Bullets (GeMS): This Orion Nebula region has a long history of adaptive optics (AO) imaging at Gemini. The field was first targeted with the Altair AO system at Gemini North in 1997, followed by this imaging sequence with GeMS (a single GeMS pointing was released at the January 2013 meeting of the Astronomical Society. This near-infrared image is comprised of three, three-band pointings using the GeMS AO system with the Gemini South AO Imager (GSAOI). In the GeMS/GSAOI image, strong winds from a violent explosion associated with a region of star birth behind the Orion Nebula expel bullets of gas that created this spectacular system of molecular hydrogen wakes. Researchers and Principal Investigators John Bally and Adam Ginsberg of the University of Colorado are using their GeMS data to determine the intensity of the blast and the nature of the bullets. “Are they Dense fragments of circumstellar disks? Could they be ejected protoplanets? Or are they portions of the prestellar core from which massive stars form?” Bally asks. “The Sub-arcsecond resolution provided by GEMS is needed to resolve these shocks and to search for the compact, high-density knots responsible for these wakes.”