Nearest nebula to earth

[lunatio_gordin]

I keep checking but i never get consistent results online. I saw the Helix nebula, which at one site was 450 lightyears from earth, and another that said it was 650. one said it was the Horsehead nebula at 350 parsecs (which is 3.26 lightyears, much farther than the last one.) and another reported the orion nebula. and this is only the first page of the search... any help?

 

[botch]

The helix nebula is quite an interesting object really; it's close enough to cover the same amout of sky as half a full moon, and has strange streaking blobs of gas escaping the core of the nebula that might condense into small rocky planets that'll travel the galaxy unbound by any stars gravity. <br />There are some cool hubble images of it too, I'll see if I can dig one up.

 

[botch]

here's the picture that I was thinking of

 

[odysseus145]

Actually each of those "blobs" is twice the size of our solar system. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[majornature]

I know a great image when I see one and the Helix Nebula is beautiful. Imagine having one of those blobs orbiting Earth...Hmm... fascinating <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="2" color="#14ea50"><strong><font size="1">We are born.  We live.  We experiment.  We rot.  We die.  and the whole process starts all over again!  Imagine That!</font><br /><br /><br /><img id="6e5c6b4c-0657-47dd-9476-1fbb47938264" style="width:176px;height:247px" src="http://sitelife.space.com/ver1.0/Content/images/store/14/4/6e5c6b4c-0657-47dd-9476-1fbb47938264.Large.jpg" alt="blog post photo" width="276" height="440" /><br /></strong></font> </div>

 

[lunatio_gordin]

Learn all kinds of things writing sci fi <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" /> i want to at least somewhat accurate, even if i have to constantly keep giving the ship upgrades so it can travel that far in a reasonable amount of time (read: months).

 

[botch]

That's true, and most of that gas will disperse within a few hundred millenia, but the possibilty remains of collapsing dust at the centre condensing into planetary bodies. I read about it in a book called Hubbles Universe: A New Picture of Space by Simon Goodwin. It's got a ton of fantastic images with each one explained very well.

 

[lunatio_gordin]

hm, let me check, but i think that's farther from Rho Cancri, or 55 cancri, which is where my starship is currently located. I guess a better title then is "nearest nebula to 55 cancri" but i really wanted to know the best one for going from earth or proxima. <br />EDIT: actually, it's closer by 13 lightyears. Not a big deal considering the distance, but it does shave some time off for returning to earth too <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" /> Thanks eddie