Trapezium Cluster in the Orion Nebula
Probing deep within a neighborhood stellar nursery, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope uncovered a swarm of newborn brown dwarfs. The orbiting observatory's near-infrared camera revealed about 50 of these objects throughout the Orion Nebula's Trapezium cluster about 1,500 light-years from Earth.
The brown dwarfs are too dim to be seen in a visible-light image taken by the Hubble telescope's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. This view also doesn't show the assemblage of infant stars seen in the near-infrared image. That's because the young stars are embedded in dense clouds of dust and gas. The Hubble telescope's near-infrared camera, the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer, penetrated those clouds to capture a view of those objects.
Credit:
About the Image
NASA caption
| Id: | opo0019c |
| Type: | Observation |
| Release date: | 24 August 2000, 07:00 |
| Size: | 700 x 701 px |
About the Object
| Name: | Trapezium Cluster |
| Type: | • Milky Way : Star : Grouping : Cluster : Open • Milky Way : Nebula : Type : Star Formation |
| Distance: | 1400 light years |
Colours & filters
| Band | Wavelength | Telescope |
| Optical OIII |
502 nm | Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 |
| Optical H-alpha |
656 nm | Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 |
| Optical NII |
658 nm | Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 |
