Astronomy Picture of the Day——WISE拍摄的猎户星云红外光影像

Discover the cosmos! Each day a differentimage or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a briefexplanation written by a professional astronomer.

The Orion Nebula in Infrared from WISE

Image Credit: WISE, IRSA, NASA; Processing& Copyright : Francesco Antonucci

Explanation: The Great Nebula in Orion isan intriguing place. Visible to the unaided eye, it appears as a small fuzzypatch in the constellation of Orion. But this image, an illusory-colorfour-panel mosaic taken in different bands of infrared light with the Earthorbiting WISE observatory, shows the Orion Nebula to be a bustling neighborhoodof recently formed stars, hot gas, and dark dust. The power behind much of theOrion Nebula (M42) is the stars of the Trapezium star cluster, seen near thecenter of the featured image. The orange glow surrounding the bright starspictured here is their own starlight reflected by intricate dust filaments thatcover much of the region. The current Orion Nebula cloud complex, whichincludes the Horsehead Nebula, will slowly disperse over the next 100,000years.

WISE拍摄的猎户星云红外光影像

说明：猎户座大星云是一片令人着迷的天体。它是猎户座中一个肉眼可见的模糊小光斑。但是这幅照片是由地球轨道上运行的广域红外巡天探测器（WISE）在红外光不同波段下拍摄的四张照片拼接而成，它所呈现的猎户星云是一个由新形成不久的恒星、炽热云气和黑暗尘埃构成的繁忙区域。而激发猎户星云能量的是在这幅照片中央附近可见的猎户四边形星团内的恒星。影像中明亮恒星周围的橙色光芒是它们自身发出的光受到覆盖了该区域的丝状尘埃反射所致。目前的猎户星云复杂体还包括马头星云，预计它将在10万年后慢慢消散。