Saturday, March 14, 2015

Orion Nebula in Surrounding Dust

Orion Nebula in Surrounding Dust: APOD: 2014 March 25 - Orion Nebula in Surrounding Dust


Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2014 March 25


See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.
Orion Nebula in Surrounding Dust

Image Credit & Copyright: Robert Fields
Explanation: What surrounds a hotbed of star formation? In the case of the Orion Nebula -- dust. The entire Orion field, located about 1600 light years away, is inundated with intricate and picturesque filaments of dust. Opaque to visible light, dust is created in the outer atmosphere of massive cool stars and expelled by a strong outer wind of particles. The Trapezium and other forming star clusters are embedded in the nebula. The intricate filaments of dust surrounding M42 and M43 appear gray in the above image, while central glowing gas is highlighted in brown and blue. Over the next few million years much of Orion's dust will be slowly destroyed by the very stars now being formed, or dispersed into the Galaxy.

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