ESA Science & Technology - The Orion Nebula in multiwavelength

The Orion Nebula, an iconic cosmic 'nursery', seen at different wavelengths. The blue frame zooms in on part of the Orion constellation, and the orange frame zooms further in, showing the Orion Nebula in greater detail. This region, where thousands of stars are forming, looks very different across the electromagnetic spectrum. Observations in visible light, from ground-based observatories, show mostly stars, while observations at longer wavelengths (near- and mid-infrared, (sub)millimetre and microwave) reveal the intricate mixture of cold gas and dust from which stars are born. In contrast, X-ray observations show the extremely hot gas ejected by young, massive stars.

Credit: ESA / AOES Medialab (overall composition); Kosmas Gazeas (visible light, large image); STScI-DSS (visible light, small image); ESA, LFI & HFI Consortia (microwave and (sub)millimetre); AAAS / Science, ESA XMM-Newton and NASA Spitzer data (mid-infrared and X-rays); NASA, ESA, M Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute / ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team (visible and near-infrared)