Infrared Orion from WISE
From NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day
The Great Nebula in
Orion is an intriguing place. Visible to the unaided eye, it appears as a small fuzzy patch in the constellation
of Orion.
But this image, an illusory-color
four-panel mosaic taken in different bands of infrared
light with the Earth orbiting WISE
observatory, shows the Orion Nebula to be a
bustling neighborhood or
recently formed stars, hot gas, and dark dust.
The power behind much of
the Orion Nebula (M42)
is the stars of the Trapezium star
cluster, seen near the center of the above wide field image.
The orange glow
surrounding the bright stars pictured here is their own starlight reflected by
intricate dust filaments that
cover much of the region.
The current Orion Nebula cloud complex,
which includes the Horsehead Nebula, will
slowly disperse over the next 100,000 years.
