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About the Image
About the Object
Color Mapping
Astrometrics
Orion's Inner Beauty
This infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Orion nebula, our closest massive star-making factory, 1,450 light-years from Earth. The nebula is close enough to appear to the naked eye as a fuzzy star in the sword of the popular hunter constellation.
The nebula itself is located on the lower half of the image, surrounded by a ring of dust. It formed in a cold cloud of gas and dust and contains about 1,000 young stars. These stars illuminate the cloud, creating the beautiful nebulosity, or swirls of material, seen here in infrared.
This image shows infrared light captured by Spitzer's infrared array camera. Light with wavelengths of 8 and 5.8 microns (red and orange) comes mainly from dust that has been heated by starlight. Light of 4.5 microns (green) shows hot gas and dust; and light of 3.6 microns (blue) is from starlight.
Related Media
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News Release NASA's Spitzer Digs Up Troves of Possible Solar Systems in Orion ssc2006-16 |
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Image Orion's Inner Beauty ssc2006-16a |
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Image The Sword of Orion ssc2006-16b |
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Image The Infrared Hunter ssc2006-16c |
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Image A Slice of Orion ssc2006-16d |
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Video Journey to Orion ssc2006-16v1 |
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Video Orion Nebula (Gallery Explorer) hiddenuniverse026 |
Image Components
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Image Orion in the Infrared ssc2006-16a1 |
