Exploring the Orion Nebula's Historical Ties

The Orion Nebula, depicted in a stunning new image, has a fascinating narrative intertwined with the Mayan civilization, the fall of Constantinople, and humanity's first major pandemic.

Located approximately 1,500 light years from our planet, the Orion Nebula is a stellar nursery where new stars are born. As these stars ignite, the light emitted from their hot cores illuminates this vast gas cloud, creating a brilliant spectacle in shades of red, blue, and green.

Visible as the fuzzy center "star" in Orion the Hunter's sword, the Mayans recognized this nebula as a site of cosmic creation. This remarkable insight comes from a civilization that had no access to telescopes.

When the light captured in this image began its journey in the early Sixth Century, the Roman Empire had just split into two parts a generation earlier. In 541 CE, after Justinian I took the throne of the newly established Eastern Roman Empire, the bacterium Yersinia pestis began its deadly spread across Europe and the Near East.

Before long, this microbe was responsible for the bubonic plague that swept through the Mediterranean region. By the end of this first global pandemic four years later, around 20% of Constantinople's population had perished. Remarkably, Justinian himself contracted the plague but survived, living for another 23 years.

From 1347 to 1351, the same bacterium would again unleash chaos, this time known as the Black Death in Europe.

In approximately 525 CE, the Scythian monk Dionysius Exiguus established the Anno Domini calendar, which is based on the estimated birth date of Jesus Christ. This is the calendar that most Western cultures still utilize today, although many historians now refer to the last 2021 years as the Common Era (CE). In 552, Buddhism also made its way to Japan, just 15 years before the birth of Muhammad.

This composite image was captured through 12 exposures over two hours on the nights of September 13 and 15, 2021, utilizing the 0.6-meter CHI-1 Telescope located in Chile. In this image, hydrogen appears red, sulfur is depicted in green, and oxygen is represented in blue.

James Maynard, the founder and publisher of The Cosmic Companion, is originally from New England but now resides in Tucson with his wife, Nicole, and their cat, Max.

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