The
Flame Nebula in Visible and Infrared
From
NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
What
lights up the Flame Nebula? Fifteen hundred light years away towards the
constellation of Orion lies a nebula which, from its glow and
dark dust lanes, appears, on the left, like a
billowing fire.
But fire,
the rapid acquisition of oxygen, is not what makes this Flame glow.
Rather the bright star Alnitak, the easternmost star in the Belt of
Orion visible just to the right of the nebula, shines energetic
light into the Flame that knocks electrons away from the
great clouds of hydrogen gas that reside there.
Much
of the glow results when the electrons and ionized hydrogen recombine.
The above false-color picture of the Flame Nebula (NGC 2024) was taken is a
composite of both visible and infrared light,
the later energy band being where a young star cluster becomes
visible.
The Flame
Nebula is part of the Orion
Molecular Cloud Complex, a star-forming region that includes the
famous Horsehead Nebula.
Image Credit & Copyright: Optical (RGB+Ha): Aldo Mottino & Ezequiel Bellocchio (Argentina); Infrared: ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA.
