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| Figure 1 | Figure 2 |
This image composite outlines the region near Orion's sword that was
surveyed by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope (white box). The view on the
left (figure 1) is from a visible-light telescope, and the view on the
right (figure 2) shows infrared light captured by a previous infrared
mission, the Infrared Astronomical Satellite.
The Orion nebula, our closest massive star-making factory, is the
brightest spot near the hunter's sword. On a dark night, it can appear to
the naked eye as a fuzzy star, and it looks like a ghostly blob through a
pair of binoculars. The Orion constellation is one of the most prominent
winter constellations, and can be seen from all northern latitudes
starting in the fall.
Spitzer used its infrared eyes to probe the dusty clouds of a region
called Orion cloud A. outlined here in the hockey stick-shaped box (see PIA08655).
This giant cloud stretches almost a quarter of the length of the
constellation, an area equivalent to 18 full moons. The small box within
the hockey stick shows the location of another image released by Spitzer
(see PIA08653), which mainly features the Orion nebula itself.
The bright spot that shows up in the infrared view in the area of Orion's
belt is known as Orion cloud B. Together, Orion clouds A and B make up the
Orion cloud complex. In a survey of this entire complex, Spitzer unearthed
2,300 stars circled by disks of planet-forming dust and 200 stellar
embryos too young to have developed disks.
The Infrared Astronomical Satellite was a joint effort between NASA, the
Science and Engineering Research Council, United Kingdom and the
Netherlands Agency for Aerospace Programmes, the Netherlands. Spitzer has
extended the legacy of the satellite by providing much better resolution
and sensitivity.
The visible-light image comes courtesy of Howard McCallon of the Infrared
Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology
of Pasadena.
