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Euclid’s view of the Horsehead Nebula ESA25170866
ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre (CEA Paris-Saclay) G. Anselmi
7 November 2023 (upload date)
- Classification
- Photograph
- Museum
- Wikimedia Commons
- Credit line
- Euclid’s view of the Horsehead Nebula
- 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
Euclid shows us a spectacularly panoramic and detailed view of the Horsehead Nebula, also known as Barnard 33 and part of the constellation Orion.
At approximately 1375 light-years away, the Horsehead—visible as a dark cloud shaped like a horse’s head—is the closest giant star-forming region to Earth. It sits just to the south of star Alnitak, the easternmost of Orion’s famous three-star belt, and is part of the vast Orion molecular cloud.
Many other telescopes have taken images of the Horsehead Nebula, but none of them are able to create such a sharp and wide view as Euclid can with just one observation. Euclid captured this image of the Horsehead in about one hour, which showcases the mission's ability to very quickly image an unprecedented area of the sky in high detail.
[Technical details: The data in this image were taken in just five hours of observation. This colour image was obtained by combining VIS data and NISP photometry in Y and H bands; its size is 8800 x 8800 pixels. VIS and NISP enable observing astronomical sources in four different wavelength ranges. Aesthetics choices led to the selection of three out of these four bands to be cast onto the traditional…
