The Orion Nebula from CFHT
Few astronomical sights excite the imagination like the
nearby stellar nursery known as the
Orion Nebula.
The Nebula's glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at
the edge of an immense interstellar
molecular cloud only 1500 light-years away.
The Great Nebula in Orion can be
found with the unaided eye just below and to the left of the
easily identifiable
belt of three stars in the popular constellation Orion.
The above image from the
3.6-meter Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope atop a
dormant volcano in Hawaii brings out
Orion's detail in spectacular fashion.
Buried in the complex nebulosity are the bright stars of the
Trapezium in
Orion's heart, the sweeping lanes of
dark dust that cross the center,
the pervasive red glowing hydrogen gas,
and the
blue tinted dust
that reflects the light of newborn stars.
The whole Orion Nebula cloud complex, which includes the
Horsehead Nebula,
will slowly disperse over the next 100,000 years.