NASA released an image of the nebula NGC 2024 ("Flame"/"Torch")obtained an infrared space telescope WISE.

"Flame" is part Clouds of Orion - district of rapid star formation, located near the famous "belt" constellation of the same name.

Together with a photograph published a new piece of data. Let's remind: in March, the team has released the full catalog of heaven and Atlas containing infrared images and information about more than one and a half billions of objects, from asteroids to the stars and galaxies. The second review gave additional results.

Principal investigator WISE Edward Wright of the University of California in Los Angeles (USA) noted that new data are especially useful for those who study the stars, changing or moving over time. Useful they are also to clarify and verify the results of the first scan.

New information covers about a third of the second full view of the sky. It was received in the period from August to September 2010, when the stock of refrigerant running low and worked only three of the four infrared detector telescope. Coolant prevents interference heat in the results of observations, and at that time, the heating is already knocked out one of the sensors.

As for the image of the nebula NGC 2024, its colors correspond to different wavelengths in the infrared part of the spectrum. It seems that this is a giant candle smoke. In fact subtle barbs are part of a huge cloud of dust, which "are stamped" new stars. Picturesque cavity in the cloud is the result of radiation biggest stars. In the center of the nebula is a star that is 20 times heavier than our Sun. It forces the dust glow in infrared part of the spectrum. This sun was going to be as bright on our horizon, as the famous three stars of Orion's belt, but the dust makes it a 4 billion times fainter.

Below we see another bright spot is the nebula NGC 2023. You can recognize and the Horsehead nebula, which is to the right of the lower vertical ridges". Bright red arc in the lower right corner is a front of a shock wave around five-star system Sigma Orion.

Based on the materials of the jet propulsion Laboratory of NASA.