
The Blue Horsehead Nebula looks quite different in infrared light. In
visible light, the reflecting
dust of the nebula
appears blue and shaped like a horse's head. In
infrared light, however, a complex labyrinth of filaments, caverns, and cocoons of glowing dust and gas emerges, making it hard to even
identify the equine icon. The featured image of the nebula was created in three infrared colors (R=22, G=12, B=4.6
microns) from data taken by NASA's orbiting
Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft.
The nebula is cataloged as
IC 4592 and spans about 40 light years, lying about 400 light years away toward the constellation
Scorpius along the plane of our
Milky Way Galaxy.
IC 4592 is fainter but covers an angularly greater region than the better known
Horsehead Nebula of
Orion. The star that predominantly illuminates and heats the dust is
Nu Scorpii, visible as the reddened star left of center.
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