New Image Penetrates Heart of Orion Nebula

[mickw]

New images and observations of the spectacular Orion Nebula have revealed normally hidden dusty regions and the odd behavior of very young active stars buried within them.

This penetrating view of the Orion Nebula — a vast stellar nursery about 1,350 light-years from Earth — comes from the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA), the newest addition to the European Observatory's Paranal Observatory in Chile.

Although the nebula is spectacular when seen through an ordinary telescope, what can be seen using visible light is only a small part of a cloud of gas in which stars are forming. Most of the action is deeply embedded in dust clouds and to see what is really happening astronomers need to use telescopes with detectors sensitive to the longer, infrared wavelength radiation that can penetrate the dust.

More:   Space.com