Want an awesome picture? Look at the Painted Orion.

The Orion nebula is a canvas of colors when seen by the Hubble and Spitzer space observatories in this image and video.

Swarms of infant stars are in the midst of creation in Orion, which sits some 1,500 light-years from Earth. In fact, the four massive stars seen at the center of this cloud—known as the Trapezium—may the primary shiners in the familiar Orion constellation.

Stars show as shining dots in this view, with the orange-yellow ones stemming from Spitzer Space Telescope while the green and blue ones were caught by the Hubble Space Telescope. Stellar winds from young stars carve the well-defined ridges and cavities in Orion’s gas and dust cloud, though the large cavity on the right may result from the Trapezium.

The eddies of green result from Hubble observations in the ultraviolet and visible light wavelengths, which found hydrogen and sulfur gas that had been ionized and heated in a bath of intense radiation.

Spitzer is an infrared observatory, but its camera eyes reveal rich molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons—found on burnt toast and car exhaust on Earth—within the Orion nebula.

Astronomers believe that some 1,000 stars are getting their start in Orion, the closest star factory to Earth.

While invisible to the naked eye, the Orion nebula’s location can be spotted since it is in the brightest spot in the sword of the Orion constellation. A good pair of binoculars or a small telescope is enough to pick it out.

[Painted Orion]

I ALWAYS love awesome photos like this. The science is nice, but he image is everything, it truly is worth 1000 words.

Tags: Interesting, Photographs, Science, Space