The Flame Nebula Smolders in New Spitzer Photo

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, which views the cosmos in infrared light, has taken a fresh look at the beautiful Flame Nebula, revealing some fascinating features that would otherwise remain invisible at other wavelengths.

But wait, what’s that hiding in the delicate tendrils of gas and dust to the right of the observation?

That familiar shape is of course the Horsehead Nebula, a feature made famous by the Hubble Space Telescope in optical wavelengths. However, when viewed in infrared light, the Horsehead Nebula becomes a ghostly apparition.

Observations in optical wavelengths highlight the opaque dust, but in infrared wavelengths, that dust becomes invisible, the infrared light cuts straight through, leaving only wisps of structure that outlines the ‘head’ of the nebula.

Infrared astronomy is a powerful tool when studying nebulae like the Flame Nebula, located around 1,200 light-years away adjacent to Alnitak, the westernmost star in Orion’s belt. Deep inside the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, of which the Flame and Horsehead Nebula are members, is a frenzy of stellar evolution. Stars are forming from the molecular hydrogen, but in optical wavelengths, we cannot see the stars coming to life.

Infrared observations, on the other hand, act as a stellar ultrasound of sorts; the infrared light from intense heating by the baby stars cuts straight through the dense nebula, allowing us to see inside the cloud of dust and gas.

In this observation, the white and blueish represent hues represent the hottest objects, whereas the green and reddish hues represent the cooler dust in the nebula. Data from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, was also used to complement the Spitzer data surrounding this Orion Molecular Cloud Complex view.

From Discovery News