Explanation:
Few cosmic vistas excite the imagination like
the Orion Nebula,
an immense stellar nursery some 1,500 light-years away.
Also known as M42, the nebula is
visible to the unaided eye,
but this
stunning infrared view from the
Spitzer Space
Telescope
penetrates the turbulent cosmic gas and
dust clouds to
explore
the region in unprecedented detail.
At full resolution, the remarkable image data yields
a census of new stars and potential solar systems.
About 2,300 young stars surrounded by
planet-forming disks
were detected based on the
infrared glow of their warm dust,
along with about 200 stellar
embryos,
stars too young to have developed disks.
This 0.8 by 1.4 degree false-color image is
about 20 light-years wide at the distance of the
Orion
Nebula.
