Posted on 07/07/2021 5:31:24 PM PDT by MtnClimber
Explanation: What would it look like to fly into the Orion Nebula? The exciting dynamic visualization of the Orion Nebula is based on real astronomical data and adept movie rendering techniques. Up close and personal with a famous stellar nursery normally seen from 1,500 light-years away, the digitally modeled representation based is based on infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope. The perspective moves along a valley over a light-year wide, in the wall of the region's giant molecular cloud. Orion's valley ends in a cavity carved by the energetic winds and radiation of the massive central stars of the Trapezium star cluster. The entire Orion Nebula spans about 40 light years and is located in the same spiral arm of our Galaxy as the Sun.
Today's image is an animated visualization.
That was beautiful.
You should at least say why most astronomy is done in Near IR as opposed to optical wavelengths.
Most Astronomers want to do science, optics just tell you what something looks like and the nature of light that reflects off of it. It doesn’t tell you what it is made of. Things that generate photons, Xrays, gamma rays, radio frequencies, et al tell you what stuff out there is made of.
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