The Orion nebula is featured in this
sweeping image from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE.
The constellation of Orion is prominent in the evening sky throughout
the world from about December through April of each year. The nebula
(also catalogued as Messier 42) is located in the sword of Orion,
hanging from his famous belt of three stars. The star cluster embedded
in the nebula is visible to the unaided human eye as a single star, with
some fuzziness apparent to the most keen-eyed observers. Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA. › Full image and caption
The tangle of clouds and stars that lie in Orion's sword is showcased
in a new, expansive view from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey
Explorer, or WISE.
Orion, the famous hunter, is visible in evening skies throughout the
world from about December through April. The constellation appears
tranquil and still to the naked eye, but lying in its sword, at what
appears to be a slightly fuzzy star, is a turbulent cauldron of stellar
birth.
WISE scanned the whole sky in infrared light, capturing this vast view
of the dynamic region, called the Orion nebula. The telescope picked up
the infrared glow from dust heated by newborn stars. The colors green
and red highlight this warmed dust, while the white regions are the
hottest. Massive stars burned through the dust, carving out cavities,
the largest of which is seen at the center of the picture.
Astronomers think that our sun was probably born in a similar cloud some
five billion years ago. Over time, the cloud would have dispersed and
the stars would have drifted apart, leaving us more isolated in space.
The crowded newborn stars in the Orion nebula are less than 10 million
years old -- billions of years from now, they will likely spread out.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages, and
operated, WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The spacecraft
was put into hibernation mode in 2011, after it scanned the entire sky
twice, completing its main objectives. Edward Wright is the principal
investigator and is at UCLA. The mission was selected competitively
under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the agency's Goddard Space
Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the
Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah. The spacecraft was built by
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. Science
operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and
Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Caltech manages JPL for NASA.
More information is online at http://www.nasa.gov/wise and http://wise.astro.ucla.edu and http://jpl.nasa.gov/wise .
Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov
