The origin of ionized filaments within the Orion-Eridanus superbubble

The Orion-Eridanus superbubble, formed by the nearby Orion high-mass star-forming region, contains multiple bright H alpha filaments on the Eridanus side of the superbubble. We examine the implications of the H alpha brightnesses and sizes of these filaments, the Eridanus filaments. We find that either the filaments must be highly elongated along the line of sight or they cannot be equilibrium structures illuminated solely by the Orion star-forming region. The Eridanus filaments may, instead, have formed when the Orion-Eridanus superbubble encountered and compressed a pre-existing, ionized gas cloud, such that the filaments are now out of equilibrium and slowly recombining.