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Orion Nebula in NIRCam long-wavelength channel
2. October 2023
- Classification
- Photograph
- Museum
- Wikimedia Commons
- Credit line
- https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2023/09/Orion_Nebula_in_NIRCam_long-wavelength_channel
- Rights
- CC BY-SA 3.0 igo, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Kids profiles and older: it shows nature, places, still life or a children's book. How works are placed
About this work
Orion Nebula in NIRCam long-wavelength channel
This image shows the full survey of the inner Orion Nebula and Trapezium Cluster made using the NIRCam instrument on the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. This is the long-wavelength colour composite, which focuses on the gas, dust, and molecules in the region with unprecedented sensitivity in the thermal infrared.
The cavity is mostly filled with ionised gas, seen here in purple, while the surroundings have a mix of dust and molecular gas seen in reds, browns, and greens. The Bright Bay to the upper left is being eroded by the massive stars at the centre of the region and there are many pillars of gas and dust which are being carved.
This young star-forming region is just a million years old and contains thousands of new stars spanning a range of masses from 40 down to less than 0.1 times the mass of the Sun. The most massive and hottest stars in the region, notably the Trapezium in the centre, have sculpted a cavity in the surface of the giant molecular cloud from which they were born, which can be readily seen in this image.
The Orion Nebula lies roughly 1300 light-years from Earth in the so-called 'sword' of the…
