SOFIA views Orion in Mid-IR
This three-panel comparison of Orion's Messier 42 (M42) region is composed of a visible light image from the Hubble Space Telescope, a near-infrared image captured by the European Southern Observatory in Chile, and a mid-infrared mosaic image taken by SOFIA's Faint Object InfraRed Camera for the SOFIA Telescope, or FORCAST.
The FORCAST image, a two-filter false-color composite (20 microns – green, 37 microns – red), reveals detailed structures in the clouds of star forming material, as well as heat radiating from a cluster of luminous newborn stars seen in the upper right.
Orion as viewed by FORCAST and two other instruments
Labeled version of Orion image
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Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
Visible-light image: NASA/ESA/HST/AURA/STScI/O'Dell & Wong; Near-IR image: ESO/McCaughrean et al.; Mid-IR image: NASA/DLR/SOFIA/USRA/DSI/FORCAST Team
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Technical support
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Project support
- Eric Sokolowsky (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
Release date
This page was originally published on Thursday, October 17, 2013.
This page was last updated on Tuesday, November 14, 2023 at 12:23 AM EST.