The Orion Nebula from VLT

The Great Nebula in Orion is a colorful place. Visible to the unaided eye, it appears as a small fuzzy patch in the constellation of Orion . But this image , a representative-color composite of 81 near- infrared light images taken with VLT's ISAAC , shows the Orion Nebula to be a busy neighborhood of young stars, hot gas, and dark dust. The power behind much of the Orion Nebula (M42) is the Trapezium - four of the brightest stars in the nebula. The eerie blue glow surrounding the bright stars pictured here is their own starlight reflected by nearby dust . Dark brown dust filaments cover much of the region . The whole Orion Nebula cloud complex, which includes the Horsehead Nebula , will slowly disperse over the next 100,000 years.