Part 1 of Essay
The contains one of the brightest star clusters in the night sky. With a magnitude of 4, this nebula is easily visible from the Northern Hemisphere during the winter months. It is surprising, therefore, that this region was not documented until 1610 by a French lawyer named Nicholas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc. On March 4, ....

Part 2 of Essay
.... emit ultraviolet (UV) light that ionizes the surrounding hydrogen atoms into protons (H+) and electrons (e-). When the protons and electrons recombine, the electrons enter a higher energy level (n=3). Then, when the electron drops from the n=3 level to the n=2 level, an Hphoton is emitted. 2 This photon has a wavelength of 6563 Å, and therefore corresponds to the red portion of the visible spectrum. It is these H photons which give the nebula the distinctive red color which we see. The ....