- NASA ID: PIA21073
- Center: JPL
- Secondary Creator Credit: ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech
- Date Created: 2016-10-12
- Visit JPL Website
The dusty
side of the Sword of Orion is illuminated in this striking infrared image from
the European Space Agency's Hershel Space Observatory. This immense nebula is
the closest large region of star formation, situated about 1,500 light years
away in the constellation of Orion. The parts that are easily observed in
visible light, known alternatively as the Orion Nebula or Messier 42,
correspond to the light blue regions. This is the glow from the warmest dust,
illuminated by clusters of hot stars that have only recently been born in this
chaotic region. The red spine of material running from corner to corner reveals
colder, denser filaments of dust and gas that are scattered throughout the
Orion nebula. In visible light this would be a dark, opaque feature, hiding the
reservoir of material from which stars have recently formed and will continue
to form in the future. Herschel data from the PACS instrument observations, at
wavelengths of 100 and 160 microns, is displayed in blue and green,
respectively, while SPIRE 250-micron data is shown in red. Within the inset
image, the emission from ionized carbon atoms (C+), overlaid in yellow, was
isolated and mapped out from spectrographic data obtained by the HIFI
instrument. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21073