The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 15.0125  Monday, 19 January 2004

From:           Lawrence Barkley <
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Date:           Saturday, 17 Jan 2004 20:17:50 -0800
Subject:        NASA Shakespeare Reference

Dear All:

At the NASA "Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive" site
(http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html) for 29 December 2003,
there is a picture of the The Witch Head Nebula; the accompanying
explanation reads:

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble -- maybe
Macbeth should have consulted the Witch Head Nebula. This suggestively
shaped reflection nebula is associated with the bright star Rigel in the
constellation Orion. More formally known as IC 2118, the Witch Head
Nebula glows primarily by light reflected from Rigel, located just
outside the top right corner of the above image. Fine dust in the nebula
reflects the light.  The blue color is caused not only by Rigel's blue
color but because the dust grains reflect blue light more efficiently
than red. The same physical process causes Earth's daytime sky to appear
blue, although the scatterers in Earth's atmosphere are molecules of
nitrogen and oxygen. The nebula lies about 1000 light-years away.

Specific words in the explanation are hyperlinked for additional
information; the word "Macbeth" in the first sentence is hyperlinked to
http://the-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/macbeth/.

Larry Barkley

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